NATO: Taliban's false claims are 'acts of desperation'

[News_Editor]

NATO: Taliban's false claims are 'acts of desperation'

2011-05-24 02:26:15 GMT+7 (ICT)

KABUL (BNO NEWS) -- False claims of responsibility made by the Taliban as part of its propaganda campaign are acts of desperation, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said on Monday.

The Taliban insurgent group is known to frequently exaggerate and fabricate claims for propaganda purposes, and the group usually publishes dozens of statements daily. Most statements turn out to be either false or highly exaggerated.

German Army Brigadier General Josef Blotz, a spokesman for ISAF, said the insurgent group also claims responsibility for attacks which were carried out by other insurgent groups and they often spread incorrect information about Afghan and ISAF operations.

Blotz named Saturday morning's suicide attack on a large Afghan military hospital in Kabul as an example. The attack, carried out against the 400-bed Charsad Bestar Hospital in central Kabul, killed 6 people and left more than 20 others with injuries.

Soon after the attack, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility. "As many as 51 military doctors and other officials of the NATO and local puppets got killed and dozens more were wounded," he said. "Both Mujahids (Muslim fighters) have embraced martyrdom with an interval of an hour after fighting bravely in the military section of the hospital before detonating their explosives belts."

"They claim to have killed international trainers," said Blotz about the Taliban claim, as all victims were Afghans. "This is a lie - nothing more than another attempt to hide the truth that insurgent attacks almost always harm civilians."

Afghan officials also said there was only one suicide bomber, not two as the Taliban claimed, and the Taliban's death toll was far higher than it actually was. Nonetheless, the Taliban claim was picked up by all major news agencies around the world. But ISAF said credible intelligence sources indicate the Haqqani Network was behind the attack, not the Taliban.

On Monday evening, Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi claimed its fighter had shot down a U.S. attack helicopter in the Kajaki district of Helmand province. "It crashed onto the ground, killing all invaders onboard at 7 p.m. local time," he said.

But an ISAF spokesperson denied the claim, and there were also no other sources to verify the report. "According to our current reports: No ISAF helicopter was shot down in Kajaki district of Helmand province today," an ISAF spokesperson said.

Blotz said the Taliban does not only make false statements for local propaganda purposes, but also in the hopes that foreign supporters will donate money to help them commit more highly visible attacks. ISAF said such attacks are becoming more difficult due to the Taliban's lack of fiscal funds.

According to the multinational force, the Taliban is in financial hardship because a large number of their drug and weapon caches have been seized or destroyed by Afghan and coalition forces in recent years, degrading a part of the Taliban's financial income.

Further, last month, the Taliban also announced the launch of what it called a spring offensive called "Badar" against Afghan and coalition forces. Badar is a reference to the Battle of Badr in 624 AD, which was a key battle in the early days of Islam.

"With the approach of the spring, the Leadership Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan wants to declare the launching of the spring military operations christened as 'Badar' to be waged against the invading Americans and their foreign Allies and internal supports," the Taliban said in a statement in April.

But the 'Badar' has so far, with the exception of mostly low-profile attacks, resulted in only hundreds of highly exagerated and false statements from the insurgent group. "The numbers demonstrate that there is only one spring offensive - that is ours," Blotz said.

Still, it does not mean that the Taliban has lost its power completely, especially in southern Afghanistan which is plagued by improvised explosive device (IED) attacks on Afghan and coalition troops and civilians.

Coalition casualties in Afghanistan have been rising sharply in recent years, with a total coalition death toll of 709 in 2010, making it the deadliest year for international troops since the war began in response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

So far this year, nearly 190 coalition service members have been killed in Afghanistan, although not all of them were as the result of Taliban attacks. The Haqqani Network insurgent group is also frequently carrying out deadly attacks, even though it is not as well known as the Taliban.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-05-24