May 4, 2020
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s (SIGAR) latest quarterly report, released on April 30, reveals that the US-led NATO task force in Afghanistan is no longer making the number of Taliban attacks public. The US military watchdog has cited sensitivity of the ongoing negotiations between the US, Taliban and the Afghan Government as the reason for keeping this information hidden. US military officials informed SIGAR that the data will become releasable to the public once the peace talks have reached a conclusion.
The move has been criticized by Special Inspector General John Sopko on the grounds that tracking the number of enemy-initiated attacks was one of the last metrics that SIGAR was using to report the security situation in Afghanistan. The coalition forces had earlier in 2018 also discontinued a system of reporting that assessed the Taliban control of individual districts.
Furthermore, the report also warned that Afghanistan was likely to face a health disaster in the coming months due to the spread of the coronavirus, raising concerns that the pandemic could derail the already stalled peace efforts brokered by the US. The pandemic has already forced border closures, disrupting commercial and humanitarian deliveries, and leading to increasing poverty, widespread malnutrition and internal displacement.
SIGAR was established by US Congress in 2008 to keep watch over US funds spent in Afghanistan. To read the complete quarterly report released by SIGAR on April 30, click here.
