It sounds like the Taliban has been taking tactical advice from Four Lions

The Afghanistan press agency Khaama has reported that police in the northern Faryab province shot down a bird and detonated a bomb that had been attached to it.

According to the agency, the local police said the bird also had a GPS device attached to it and had been flying above a checkpoint in the region that borders Turkmenistan.

NBC News, who also have a reporter on the ground, say local police chief Major General Abdul Nabi Ilham told told them the bird had exploded and "suspicious metal stuff" was scattered around its body.

We are gathering all the stuff, but found parts of what looks to be GPS and a small camera.

• Abdul Nabi Ilham, local police chief

While the Taliban has (surprisingly) not yet claimed the attack as one of theirs, recent activity in the region has led police to believe they may be behind it, according to Khaama.

One other possible explanation that has been posed is that the bird could be one of 2,000 endangered bustards that were released in southern Kazakhstan earlier this year - all attached with GPS devices. Although that wouldn't explain the explosion.

Either way, this reminds us of a scene in the 2010 Chris Morris jihad satire film Four Lions which depicts one of the protagonists planting a bomb on a crow in a training camp, only for it all to go horribly wrong...

More: In pictures - The Afghanistan you never see