Department of Defense (DOD) is pressing the legitimate US watchdog – Special Inspector General for Reconstruction in Afghanistan (SIGAR) – to release unclassified data regarding the number of districts and population being controlled, contested or influenced by either Afghan government or the insurgents.
The accusation which textured in a letter by John F. Spoko was accompanied by quarterly report on Afghanistan for the period of October 2017 to December 2017 to Congress, the Secretaries of State and Defense.
This is for the first time that the SIGAR has specifically been instructed such an injunction by the DOD since January 2016 when the US regulator began reporting district-control data in Afghanistan, report detailed.
SIGAR branded the obstruction as a ‘disappearance from public disclosure and discussion’ after frequent recounts that the number of districts being controlled or influenced by the Afghan government has continuously been falling to the insurgents in the country.
Additionally, for the first time since 2009, the DOD also classified the exact number of troops serving Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) – proclaimed to be a vital measure of ANDSF reconstruction though itself published the figures in its December 2017 unclassified report.
The report titled ‘Enhancing Security and Stability in Afghanistan’ stated Ministry of Defense manning authorization at 195,000 military troops and 5,502 civilian employees. Furthermore, the police force authorized to Ministry of Interior stood at 157,000 personnel.
Responding to the allegation, the US military backpedaled and blamed ‘a human error in labeling’ for the incident of classifying key data on Afghanistan war. US-led NATO Resolute Mission spokesperson said in a statement that it was the intent to classify or withhold information which was available in prior reports.
All six ANA corps are simultaneously conducting operations against the insurgents in their respective areas whereas there is also a significant uptick in the US airstrikes and special operations in Afghanistan. In October alone, US has dropped 653 munitions which is record high since 2012 and three-fold of the last year.
Despite all these offensive strikes, Afghan government has failed to increase the influence over its population. In a press briefing on November 28, General Nicholson said that 64% of the population is under government’s control, 12% is under insurgents’ control or influence and the rest 24% is being contested for.
As of October 2017, Afghan government’s control or influence on its population has significantly declined to 64% from 69% in August 2016. Similarly, Afghan government has also considerably lost its control or influence in districts from 72% in November 2015 to only 57% in August 2017.
As a result, the insurgents’ control or influence on Afghanistan districts has substantially been increased from just 21% to 30% as well as the district proportion in contest have also risen from 7% to 13% for the same period.
SIGAR said that the district-control data for October 2017 is not releasable as the Resolute Support (RS) mission directed the overseer ‘not to publicly release the unclassified October 2017 data’.
The statistics, particularly of district-control, are emphatically worrisome since the Afghan government has set a target to gain control over 80% of the country’s population within next two years.
A recent BBC report spanned over months of research also finds that Taliban are active in 70% of the Afghanistan territory – much more area after US combat troops withdrawal in 2014. The report further highlights that Taliban are openly operating and conducting attacks from the areas where nearly half of the Afghanistan population is dwelling.
Although there is consensus agreement between US and Afghan governments that reconciliation and political settlement with Taliban is the only way to ensure durable peace and security however this quarter ended with no progress on peace talks between the two stakeholders.
According to annual survey by Asia Foundation, 52.3% of the Afghanistan people see the possibility of peace talks with Afghan Taliban and about 15.7% of the respondents had sympathy for them, the SIGAR report to the US Congress underscored.
Since the transition of security responsibility toward the ANDSF, insider attacks have been the greatest concern for the Afghan forces. In the reported quarter, the number of personnel killed in action (KIA) has doubled as compared to same periods in 2015 and 2016.
In the first 10 months of 2017, a total of 58 insider attacks were reported including 52 ‘green-on-green’ (insider attacks on Afghan forces) and 6 ‘green-on-blue’ (insider attacks on NATO forces). This number is almost the same for 2016 when a total of 59 insider attacks (56-3) were reported.
Besides hefty appropriations on account of Afghanistan reconstructing, the United States has spent $8.7 billion in 2016 on to control the production and cultivation of narcotics. Nevertheless, opium production and area under cultivation has broken all records – up by 87% and 63% respectively.
DOD claimed to have destroyed 25 drugs labs in Afghanistan from November through December 13, 2017 – denying $80 million in drug and $16 million in direct revenue to Taliban. But SIGAR questions the accuracy of the figures as States Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs (SCA) did not provide any detail on the counter-narcotics strategy in Afghanistan.
Since FY2002 through December 2017, the United States has appropriated about $122.1 billion for relief and reconstruction in Afghanistan – $74.8bn for security including counter-narcotics, $33.0bn for governance and development, $3.4bn for humanitarian aid, and $10.9 billion for civilian operations.
Notwithstanding spending hundreds of billions of dollars in Afghanistan reconstruction and to defeat Afghan Taliban – the US military is ending up with instructing SIGAR not to release public data on district-control in Afghanistan and Afghan government to play down the freshest BBC report.