The government watchdog agency that oversees U.S. efforts in Afghanistan says it can no longer assess the security situation in the country because the U.S. military is withholding data about the increase of Taliban attacks against Afghan forces, as U.S. attempts to broker a peace deal make little progress, in part because of the coronavirus pandemic.
"NATO Resolute Support (RS) restricted from public release data on the number of enemy-initiated attacks (EIA) that took place this quarter for the first time since SIGAR began using it in 2018 to track the levels and locations of violence," said John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, in his latest quarterly report to Congress. "This EIA data was one of the last remaining metrics SIGAR was able to use to report publicly on the security situation in Afghanistan since RS discontinued its previous system of assessing district control in 2018."
TALIBAN ON A TEAR
The report notes that no sooner had the Taliban signed a withdrawal agreement with the United States than the group increased its attacks on Afghan security forces, in violation of the spirit of secret annexes in which the Taliban committed to lower the overall level of violence in return for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Comment: Isn't it odd that the Taliban would agree to a reduction in violence in order to facilitate US withdrawal from the country and then, suddenly, attacks attributed to the Taliban increase, thus voiding the agreement, meaning the US would have to stay in Afghanistan. One question we should be asking is: Who really benefits?
Comment: See also: Expensive junk: F-35 can't go supersonic without compromising critical stealth tech - Pentagon is fine with that