“An al-Qaida fighter killed himself with a grenade Tuesday rather than be captured during a failed escape from the hospital where he and several comrades had been holed up for more than a month,” the AP reports (link: Tampa Bay Online).

Mohammad Rasool, jumped from the second-story window at Mir Wais Hospital shortly before dawn but was quickly surrounded by soldiers, said Mohammed Shafiq, a local commander.

‘He stopped, looked around, saw that he was surrounded and took a grenade and blew himself up,’ Shafiq said.

The dead warrior lay on the hospital grounds, his body partially covered by a burlap sack. He had a white bandage on his right arm.

Another six al-Qaida men are still inside, Shafiq said. They have taken over four or five rooms of the internal medicine ward, and medical staff have expressed fears that they will wreak enormous violence if attempts are made to capture them.

One down, six to go. Somewhere, a mother weeps. Me? I’m going to have myself a sandwich.

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