AP photo: Wounded American soldiers, dazed, hurt, unassisted, moments after a suicide bomber detonated in a park in Maimanah, Faryab Province, April 4, 2012.

American soldiers should not be dying for COIN's parks and bazaars in Afghanistan.

On January 18, 2012, a suicide bomber blew himself up around a bridge in Kajaki Sofla bazaar. There were, as expected, many terrible casualties, but what was especially disturbing about this incident was that the military failed to acknowledge any US military casualties. Local US media outlets, quoting family members, reported that Marine Cpl. Philip McGeath, 25, was killed in the Kajaki Sofla explosion. Marine Cpl. Chrisopher Bordoni, 21, was also grievously injured. Uncle Sam stayed mum. This was something I paid particular attention to, given an alarming report on January 17, 2012 in USA Today on a new ISAF policy to curtail information about troops casualties. So did Uncle Sam.

I was recently reminded of this January incident, first, on reading the sad news that Cpl. Bordoni died of his wounds on Tuesday, April 3; and later on reading about Wednesday's suicide attack on a park (picture above) in Maimanah, Faryab province, which is in the north of Afghanistan, near the border with Turkmenistan. The facts of this recent attack are still being gathered, but we know that among those killed in the blast, apparently set off a suicide bomber either on foot or on a motorcycle (as at Kajaki), are three American soldiers. ISAF is calling it an IED attack, which is a little odd in that we have come to understand as IED as a buried explosive device, not the human-guided missile that initial reports tell us caused this explosion.

Is this more official obfuscation?

The Los Angeles Times is now reporting that Afghan investigators believe the bomber may have been in Afghan police uniform, according to the governor of Faryab, Abdul Haq Shafaq. If true, I guess this attack gets chalked up to more of General Allen's "additional risk."