No fall in Taliban attacks in 2012

So reported attacks by the Taliban did not fall by 7 per cent last year, according to the AFP news agency. ISAF had previously published the figures on its website, but yesterday was forced to admit they were wrong. "This is a regrettable error in our database systems that was discovered during a routine quality check. We are making the appropriate adjustments," said Pentagon spokesman George Little.

Officials later explained that the figures were wrong because some had come from Afghan units which had not entered the figures correctly into a database. Literacy and levels of education in some of the units is low, according to reports. In fact Taliban attacks in 2012 totalled around 3,000, about the same as the previous year.