AP Photo

A man carries an injured boy away from the site of a bombing, which hit near a school and killed three U.S. soldiers, in the town of Timergara in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

By killing three U.S. soldiers in a bomb attack in a remote corner of northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, the Taliban scored a political jackpot. With anti-American sentiment cresting in Pakistani public opinion, the presence of the three American trainers in a convoy passing through Koto village when it was struck by a roadside bomb has set off a flurry of questions and even wild conspiracy theories about the U.S. presence in the country. The news left Islamabad in a difficult position, deepened suspicion of the U.S. and further strained an already troubled relationship. (Watch a...