New research carried out for think tanks advising the U.S. government shows that, though Taliban leaders have made increasing use of suicide bombings since importing the tactic from Iraq, they appear to have deliberately avoided the kind of mass casualty attacks that have become the bloody hallmark of the campaign waged by their counterparts and allies there.

"The Taliban understand that (civilian casualties are) a key issue for them," said Brian Gwyn Williams, an assistant professor of Islamic history at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and author of the research. "They have gone out of their way to avoid killing civilian bystanders. ... They are waging a hearts-and-minds campaign just like the West is."

Williams' research seems borne out by the observations of one senior U.S. official about the security arrangements at Afghan government buildings in the capital.

"When I'd drive around Kabul, I kept thinking these ministries wouldn't be standing in another country in which we're engaged," former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann said last week -- pointedly identifying Iraq without naming it.

"They're too close to the street, there's no setback, there's too much glass."

From a study of more than 130 Afghan suicide bombings in 2006 and 50 so far this year, Williams says only six or seven attacks had killed significant numbers of civilians -- and even in those cases the casualties often appeared to be what the military term "collateral damage" rather than the product of deliberate attacks on civilian "soft targets."

He said a key turning point was an attack in the Afghan border town of Spin Boldak in January 2006, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a sporting event -- a classic "soft target" -- killing more than 20 people.

Hundreds of Afghan Pashtuns marched through the town, chanting, "Death to Pakistan, death to al-Qaida and death to the Taliban," reported the British Broadcasting Corp.

Williams said the Taliban had a much better "sense of the pulse of Pashtun tribal leaders than the Karzai government" did, and consequently understood the importance of the issue sooner.

"They were very aware of the fact that doing that (kind of mass casualty attack) again could lose them a lot of support. ... They disowned the bombing."

The way that the issue of civilian casualties -- an inevitable byproduct of the key weapon of choice for both sides in the Afghan conflict -- is perceived by Afghans is a key factor in the hearts-and-minds war that each side is waging there, says Williams.

"Whoever wins that battle -- to keep those numbers (of civilian casualties) down ... and win the battle of perception (on that issue), whoever wins that battle, wins Afghanistan," he told UPI.

The Taliban's key weapon is the suicide bomber, and the movement appeared focused on using it against so-called hard targets, like U.S., NATO or Afghan military.

The result was that a very high proportion of attacks killed only the attacker -- leading Williams to subtitle a portion of his research, "Suicide bombing, or just suicide?"

But the tactic was "a dangerous game" for the Taliban, he added, "they are trying to use an imprecise tool to do a precision job. ...

"If you attack (military) convoys in populated areas, you are going to get civilian casualties."

The director of the U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan said at the end of May that as many as 380 civilians had been killed in the conflict so far this year by both sides, but did not provide a breakdown.

NATO officials told reporters in Kabul earlier last month that 85 people, including 40 civilians, had died in the first 23 days of May from improvised explosive devices, including suicide and roadside bombs.

UNAMA Director Richard Bennett called in a statement for the Taliban to "stop the wanton disregard they have shown for innocent life" by ending "suicide bomb attacks, use of (roadside bombs), abductions, beheadings and the deliberate use of civilian locations to plan and launch attacks."

The Taliban has also very publicly advocated and carried out the murder of "spies" or "collaborators" -- a category that, according to Amnesty International, includes anyone who stands for election, clerics who dispute Taliban religious declarations, government administrators, teachers, health workers and any civilians working for aid agencies or foreign military forces. Scores have been killed by the Taliban in this fashion in the past two years, the group says.

Some observers were rather skeptical then, when, a day after Bennett's comments, Taliban leader Mullah Omar called for an independent commission to investigate and identify those responsible for civilian casualties in the conflict.

In a statement posted on the group's Web site and reported by local media, the fugitive Taliban leader said the commission should be made up of representatives of the International Committee of Red Cross, independent journalists, Afghan scholars and elders, and that NATO and the Taliban should jointly ensure its security.

(First of three parts. Part 2: The struggle for the moral high ground.)

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