Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents on Sunday condemned as "propaganda" United Nations data blaming them for more than 300 civilian casualties in the country last month.
At the weekend the UN Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said that 368 civilians had died in the conflict in May, making it the deadliest month since it began tracking casualties in 2007. Of those killed, 301 or 82 percent were victims of insurgents, it said, with 45 deaths attributable to Nato and 22 whose cause could not be assigned.
In a statement the Taliban said the UN statement was part of "a propaganda project against the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan", using the name of the country when they were in power from 1996-2001.
The intent was "to deceive the international community and Afghan people", it said.
"It is very unfortunate and sorry that despite the United Nations claim that it is a non-partisan organisation they are practising a partial policy."
The Taliban added that they had given UNAMA "exact detail of how many civilian people have been killed by the invaders and their allies" - a reference to US-led international forces - during May and asked them to "kindly publish these numbers".
UNAMA is due in early July to publish a report on civilian casualties in the first half of 2011. Civilians are by far the main victims of the war in Afghanistan, which has been in the grip of an insurgency waged by the Taliban since it was ousted from power by a US-led invasion following the September 11 attacks in 2001.
According to the UN, 2,777 civilians died in 2010, making it the deadliest year for them of the near decade-long conflict.
Civilians are mostly victims of suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices, the insurgents' favoured weapons, according to the UN, which added that many civilians also perished in bombings by Nato.
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