popular logistics

From Alissa J. Rubin’s piece in this morning’s Times, Suicide Bomber on Bike Kills 29 Iraqi Policemen

Police training in the provincial capital of Baquba turned into a blood bath on Monday when a suicide bomber on a bicycle set off his explosive vest in the midst of policemen, killing 29, the local police said.

A suicide bomber killed seven people just north of Baghdad, and the United States military said a brigadier general had been wounded by a roadside bomb in northern Baghdad, according to The Associated Press. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Dorko, the highest-ranking American officer to be hurt since the invasion in March 2003, was evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. His wounds were not life-threatening, The A.P. said.

That a brigadier general was hurt may be worth noting for the fact that it took so long to happen in a war without a “front.”

The combination of bicycle and suicide vest, however - I don’t think it’s entirely unprecedented. Butit may well make life in Baghdad even more dangerous for bicyclists, as those in the field become more cautious about bicycles. This in a country where - among all the other dangerous things - people are in harm’s way filling vehicle fuel tanks.