Taliban Tally Bad.

I've been saying it for a while so I am glad that some in the media are now realising that either the Taliban were taught maths in Scotland or they are liars:

The Taliban has long exaggerated its military successes, but its figures for 2008 may be the militia's most startling claims yet.

The Taliban claims its forces last year killed 5,220 foreign troops, downed 31 aircraft, destroyed 2,818 NATO and Afghan vehicles and killed 7,552 Afghan soldiers and police.

Though third-party observers can rarely confirm casualty claims on the Afghan battlefield from the Taliban, the Afghan government, the U.S. or NATO, the Taliban's 2008 numbers would appear to be far from the truth.

NATO's member countries announce all troop deaths, providing names, ages and hometowns and how the soldiers were killed. According to an Associated Press tally of those announcements, 286 foreign military personnel died last year in Afghanistan, including 151 Americans and 51 Britons.

So given that it is known that the Taliban make stuff up it would be nice if the press adopted a more sceptical attitude when faced with reports about wedding parties being bombed and the only evidence to back up the story is the testimony of villagers in Taliban held territory.

Seasonal Let Down.

The eagerly anticipated "Taliban Spring Offensive" that was promised and supposed to overwhelm coalition forces appears to have gone the way of the "Brutal Afghan Winter".

I suppose a "Summer Onslaught" or an "Autumn Advance" are on the way.

Some of the salivating over the supposedly resurgent Taliban has been little more than anti-Western pundits indulging in onanistic fantasising.

An Ominous Precedent.

Al Qeada are claiming responsibility for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, although they would probably do so even if they weren't responsible. Individual murders as opposed to general mass murder are not a hallmark of that organisation , in fact the only previous targeted assassination that they have carried out, as far as I'm aware, was the killing of the anti Taliban military leader Ahmed Shah Massoud. The date of his killing is notable, the ninth of September 2001, as it appears that it was a prelude to the World Trade Center & Pentagon attacks that occurred two days later.