The statistics were presented to Gazeta by the Polish armed forces' Operational Command, which monitors taliban websites.
'For the taliban, these websites are often their only source of information about the war in Afghanistan,' says Lieutenant Colonel Dariusz Kacperczyk at Op Com. 'The figures are to make them believe that they control the situation and the Nato forces are suffering heavy casualties. Which of course isn't true.'
The taliban claim to have killed 103 and wounded 715 'invaders' (as they call the coalition soldiers) in May alone - whereas in reality the coalition suffered a total of eight casualties during that period. Additionally, 207 'puppets' were reportedly killed - members of the Afghani police and armed forces and Afghanis working for the coalition.
The taliban also maintain that in May they killed nine troops and wounded forty in the Polish-controlled Ghazni province. And that they destroyed 21 tanks, which is what they call the Rosomak APCs or the MRAP armoured vehicles. The taliban report about their operations on a daily basis. Last Wednesday, for instance, they say a suicide bomber set off an IED hidden in a car near the city of Ghazni, killing 'fifteen Polish invaders' and destroying three tanks.
'There was an explosion of a booby-trapped car there, but no soldier was killed or wounded. The explosion killed two accidental passers-by, but that's something the taliban aren't saying,' explains Lt Col Kacperczyk.
'During the Polish contingent's entire fourth round [November 2008-April 2009], the taliban succeeded in destroying five Rosomaks and two MRAPs. Each time they expected us to suffer five to nine fatalities. Yet only one soldier died, and that in a car accident, not a single one was wounded,' says Gen Janusz Adamczak, who during the period served as deputy of the US Army commander of Region East, where Ghazni province is located.
'This propaganda is an element of the war the taliban are fighting, no less important than the actual combat operations. Our own statistics are available on the coalition's official website. We also inform the Afghanis via their national media: newspapers, radio stations,' says Gen Adamczak.
There is one score on which the taliban aren't wrong though: that things on the ground in Ghazni province have been getting more and more hairy. According to their statistics, Ghazni suffered 46 taliban attacks in May, less only than in the southern provinces of Kandahar (56) and Helmand (59).
The Polish army admits it has never before seen as many attacks as in the recent weeks. Still, there has been no fatalities since the fifth round's arrival in April, though several troops got wounded.'
'There is no hiding the fact that Ghazni is one of the country's most important provinces because a 160 km-long stretch of Afghanistan's main road runs through it,' explains Gen Adamczak. 'Historically, it has always been regarded as a strong centre of taliban resistance. And for them it has to remain that way. The statistics presented on the Web are to show that this is still their stronghold.'
translated by Marcin Wawrzyńczak
Źródło: Gazeta Wyborcza
