*Taliban attacks in the Afghanistan capital city, Kabul are on the rise,mainly targeting government officials, civil-society leaders andjournalists, a report by a U.S. watchdog said Monday.*
The report by Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction,known as SIGAR, come at the time when Biden administration plans to take anew look at the peace agreement between the US and the Taliban, signed inFebruary 2020 under President Donald Trump tenure.
The repot citing numbers provided by U.S. forces in Afghanistan said thatmilitant group’s attack initiated across the country during the lastquarter of 2020 were slightly lower than in the previous quarter, butexceeded those of the same period in 2019.
“Enemy attacks in Kabul were higher than during the previous quarter,” thereport quoted U.S. forces. “They were much higher than in the same quarterlast year.”
Only in December last year, Taliban unleashed a wave of attacks across thecountry, including strikes in northern Baghlan and southern Uruzganprovinces over a two-day period that killed at least 19 members of theAfghan security forces.
In Kabul, a roadside bomb struck a vehicle, wounding two, and a lawyer wasshot in a targeted killing.
Resolute Support, the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan, reported 2,586civilian casualties from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31 last year, including 810 killedand 1,776 wounded, according to the SIGAR report.
The report said that 17 percent increase was witnessed in casualties causedby improvised explosive devices in this quarter.
Despite the ongoing violence, casualties across Afghanistan in the lastquarter of 2020 decreased by 14%, compared to the previous quarter.
According to the World Bank, corruption is rampant among Afghan governmentministries, driving a wedge between the government and much of thepopulation, frustrating international donors, and contributing to a povertylevel in the country of more than 72%.
Read Top Stories
Also, recent international aid agency reports said that more than half ofAfghans are in dire need of assistance just to survive 2021.
Meanwhile, U.S. airstrikes increased in the last quarter of 2020 as U.S.forces provided defensive support to Afghan security forces, according tothe U.S. military.
It reiterated that since the signing of the U.S.-Taliban deal, U.S. forceshave ceased offensive strikes against the Taliban.
Earlier this month, Taliban representatives and the Afghan governmentresumed peace talks in Qatar, the Gulf Arab state where the insurgentsmaintain an office.
The stop-and-go talks are aimed at ending decades of conflict butfrustration and fear have grown over the recent spike in violence, and bothsides blame one another.
Pentagon chief spokesman John Kirby said last week that the U.S. stands byits commitment under the deal for a full troop withdrawal, but theagreement also calls for the Taliban to cut ties with al-Qaida and reduceviolence.
The authorized goal strength of Afghan defense forces has been adjusteddownward to 208,000 personnel, the SIGAR report said. It had been roughly227,000 for many years.
