Alec Barker catches news outlets twisting British Army Major General Nick Carter's claim "that security in [the Zhari district near Kandahar] has been demonstrably enhanced because the price of ammonium nitrate, a banned fertilizer and major component of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in southern Afghanistan, has increased ten-fold, and the price of other bomb components has risen eleven-fold." Barker objects:

[T]he story does not report that Carter believed these figures were "by no means huge measures of success." The Guardian's version of the story, which has already crept into other media reports, might lead one to think erroneously that the general claimed a very significant accomplishment and made an unqualified statement of statistical fact throughout southern Afghanistan, rather than a limited observation about one district in the South. ...

Since there generally are more and more bombs appearing in the south over time, the insurgency appears to be insensitive to rapid swings in the price of fertilizer.