WASHINGTON: The Taliban are openly active in 70 percent of Afghanistan’sdistricts, fully controlling 4 percent of the country and demonstrating anopen physical presence in another 66 percent, according to a BBC studypublished on Tuesday.

The BBC estimate, which it said was based on conversations with more than1,200 individual sources in all districts of the South Asian country, wassignificantly higher than the most recent assessment by the NATO-ledcoalition.

The coalition said on Tuesday that the Taliban contested or controlled only44 percent of Afghan districts as of October 2017.

Afghanistan has been reeling over the past nine days from a renewed spateof violence that is adding scrutiny to the latest, more aggressiveU.S.-backed strategy to bolster Afghan forces battling the Taliban in a16-year-old war.

A bomb hidden in an ambulance struck the city centre and killed more than100 people, just over a week after an attack on the Hotel Intercontinental,also in Kabul, which left more than 20 people dead, including four U.S.citizens.

The BBC counted 399 districts in Afghanistan, but the NATO-led forcecounted 407. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear.

The BBC study said the Afghan government controlled 122 districts, or about30 percent of the country. Still, it noted, that did not mean that theywere free from Taliban attacks.

“Kabul and other major cities, for example, suffered major attacks -launched from adjacent areas, or by sleeper cells – during the researchperiod, as well as before and after,” the report said.

Asked about the BBC’s study, the Pentagon did not comment directly, butpointed to the latest figures by the NATO-led coalition asserting thatabout 56 percent of Afghanistan’s territory was under Afghan governmentcontrol or influence.

Captain Thomas Gresback, a spokesman for the coalition in Kabul, said theBBC estimate overstated the militants’ “influence impact”.

“This is a criminal network, not a government in waiting,” Gresback said inan emailed statement.

“What really matters is not the number of districts held, but populationcontrolled. RS assesses that around 12 percent of the population isactually under full Taliban control,” he said, referring to the ResoluteSupport mission.

The study by Britain’s public broadcaster quoted a spokesman for AfghanPresident Ashraf Ghani playing down the findings.

The BBC study also said Daesh had a presence in 30 districts, but noted itdid not fully control any of them. – Agencies