Turkish claims of American mischief have grown louder and ever more outlandish since last summer’s failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with many of his supporters agreeing that the “real” mastermind is Washington.

But a Turkish gendarmerie commander clearly deserves credit for carrying these claims to virgin terrain. In a column published in the pro-secular Sozcu today, the commander, whose name was withheld, illustrated the new lows to which distrust between the two NATO allies has sunk, asserting that US-manufactured bombs dropped by the Turkish air force on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets were duds.

“Unfortunately the bombs that our planes are dropping are fakes,” the commander, who is reportedly stationed in the mainly Kurdish southeast region, told Sozcu columnist Saygi Ozturk. The commander cited two incidents that took place over the past month near the provinces of Van, Sirnak and Bitlis, where the PKK is active.

“Three bombs are dropped on a group of seven [PKK] terrorists. Although the bombs land within 25-30 meters [of the targets’ position], one of the terrorists survives. In the other affair, the bomb is dropped within 8 meters of two terrorists sitting under a tree, but they get up and go as if nothing happened. How is this possible? Normally a single bomb kills anything that is within 300 meters of its target.” The commander then dropped his own bomb: “It is an American company that manufactures the bombs.”