Information about Taliban attacks in Afghanistan lack hard data

(May 3) Attempting to find proper figures to measure the effects of the civil war in Afghanistan has been challenging for some time now. Analysts need to make do with publicly available information.

Even people such as the US Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) struggle to gather reliable data as Afghan officials prefer that SIGAR not be too well informed about what is happening.

Situation becoming even less transparent

SIGAR's latest quarterly report shows that even less data is forthcoming. One of the few remaining sources of data NATO statistics on Taliban attacks are now being withheld both from the public and from SIGAR as well. The NATO report says only that the Taliban had increased attacks against Afghan forces and were above seasonal norms in March. However, there is no hard data to confirm this or to what extent the increase is,. There is no exact hard data at all.

It is not even certain that the report is correct. Earlier reports indicated that Taliban violence was higher than they had hoped after the Taliban US peace deal but was still down considerably from the situation before the peace deal. However, it is not clear why both descriptions could not be true without more exact numbers.

Afghan government failed to carry out terms US Taliban peace agreement

At the end of February, the US and Taliban signed a peace agreement. Among its provisions was a prisoner swap of 5,000 Taliban prisoners held by the Taliban for 1,000 Afghan forces imprisoned by the Taliban. The Afghan government was not part of the agreement and refused to carry out the swap which was to be a confidence building measure to be followed by government talks with the Taliban. The Taliban reacted by renewing attacks on the Afghan government but not foreign troops. When the US defended the Afghan government the US again started to fight the Taliban.

John Sopko, SIGAR, wrote in his quarterly report: "The signing of the U.S.-Taliban agreement followed a successful week-long 'reduction in violence.' Without the background reported above one cannot understand why it is that the Taliban reacted the way they did. It was not due to the Taliban rejecting their treaty with the US it was due to the Afghan government rejecting that agreement and refusing to carry out its provisions. The US did nothing to force the government to carry the provisions out and talks with the Taliban have yet to result in a satisfactory resolution of the situation.

Previously published in the Digital Journal