Considering the fact that the first two Asha'man to make it into the city disappear after attempting to take Rand on by themselves, I think it is entirely reasonable that Taim might think the other two would fail as well.



Because what the characters believe to be true and what actually is true are so often the same? I can easily see Taim wanting to have redundancy plans. Plus, the fact that he is directing the Asha'man, he would likely know where Rand is staying. IMO, the only other suspects would be Demandred and Ishy. Demandred wouldn't send someone else to kill Rand and Ishy didn't want him dead at that point and would have wanted Slayer to retrieve the Choedan Kal.



I don't know if you noticed or not, but most of RJ's villians are kind of lacking in the serious threat department. And whil his failure to kill Fain doesn't necessarily make him a bad assassin there is no evidence for Slayer being a good assassin.



Yes, Semi gets wounded, not killed. And Semi is arrogant enough to think that no one would dare attack her. Rand was attacked from behind and Fain still only managed a small wound that would have done nothing except for Fain's magic dagger. Slayer being willing to go after Rand again doesn't show his lack of fear of channelers, only his commitment to serving the Shadow. Besides, even if Rand hadn't been in Far Madding, a sleeping channeler isn't much of a threat to anyone.