NATO’s US-led Mission in Afghanistan Stops Providing Key Info on Taliban Attacks - Report

By Staff, Agencies

Weeks after a long-awaited deal between the US and the Taliban was signed to end nearly two decades of violence in Afghanistan, the country continues to face repeated attacks by Taliban militants.

The office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction [SIGAR] claimed that NATO's US-led mission in Afghanistan has stopped providing key information on numbers of attacks conducted by the Taliban in the country.

In its quarterly report released on Friday, the US watchdog said that “between March 1 and 31, the Taliban refrained from attacks against coalition forces; however they increased attacks against [Afghan forces] to levels above seasonal norms”.

The watchdog underscored that data on enemy attacks "was one of the last remaining metrics SIGAR was able to use to report publicly on the security situation in Afghanistan”.

SIGAR also quoted Pentagon officials as saying that the US War Department might restart releasing the information in the future.

While in previous months the Resolute Support [RS] mission had disclosed data on "enemy-initiated attacks" as well as the strength of the Taliban and other militant groups, in March RS gave only a short statement on the Taliban stepping up attacks.

RS explained its decision to withhold data by telling SIGAR that the enemy attacks were now a "critical part" of discussions "regarding ongoing political negotiations between the US and the Taliban".

The remarks by RS came after at least four Afghan policemen were killed and five others injured as Taliban militants carried out an attack on a security checkpoint in the Nachin area of the country's central province of Oruzgan late last week.

The attack was the latest in a series of such assaults that have been conducted by the Taliban since a peace agreement between the militant group and the US was signed in Doha, Qatar on 29 February.