NEW YORK – A US government watchdog said Tuesday the Pentagon has barredit from disclosing how much of Afghanistan is under Taliban control — asignificant break from past accountability that comes amid mountingsecurity woes in the war-torn nation.
At issue are the number of Afghan districts, and the populations living inthem, considered to be held or influenced by the Kabul government byinsurgents or contested by both.
The US government has sometimes referred to such numbers in the 16-year-oldwar to show how the Afghan security forces are faring against a resurgentTaliban.
But in a report published Tuesday, the US government’s office of theSpecial Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said thePentagon had instructed it to no longer disclose the numbers.
“This development is troubling for a number of reasons, not least of whichis that this is the first time SIGAR has been specifically instructed notto release information marked ‘unclassified’ to the American taxpayer,”wrote the special inspector, John Sopko, in SIGAR’s latest quarterly report.
The move comes months after Washington last year agreed to an Afghanrequest to classify data on the number of Afghan security forces killed orwounded in the conflict.
SIGAR said the Pentagon had also asked its office, for the first time since2009, to classify the figures detailing the size and attrition rates ofAfghan security forces.
The Pentagon did not dispute that the data had been restricted, but deniedit was the agency that had told SIGAR not to publish them, instead pointingto the US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan.
“In this case, NATO’s Resolute Support, as the original classificationauthority, made a classification determination that restricted the public,unclassified release of the information,” said Lieutenant Colonel MikeAndrews, a Pentagon spokesman.
Cause for concern
General John Nicholson, who commands US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, hassaid 80 percent of the Afghan population can be under government controlwithin about two years, up from less than two thirds today.
But tracking progress toward such a goal would be difficult without anynumbers being released.
“Historically, the number of districts controlled or influenced by thegovernment has been falling since SIGAR began reporting on it, while thenumber controlled or influenced by the insurgents has been rising,” Sopkosaid.
He added that this “fact that should cause even more concern about itsdisappearance from public disclosure and discussion.”
Militants including the Taliban and the Islamic State group have stepped uptheir attacks on beleaguered Afghan troops and police in recent months,sapping morale already hit by desertions and corruption.
On Saturday, a Taliban suicide attacker driving an explosives-packedambulance blew it up in a crowded area of the capital, killing at least 103people — mainly civilians — and wounding 235 in one of the worst bombingsin the city in recent years.
On January 20, Taliban fighters stormed Kabul’s landmark Intercontinentalhotel and killed at least 25 people, the majority of them foreigners, in anassault lasting more than 12 hours.
And on Monday, gunmen and suicide bombers launched a pre-dawn attackclaimed by IS on a military compound in Kabul, killing at least 11 soldiersand wounding 16. – AFP