Fatal year for 6,785 Afghans in uniform

The government ‘controls barely half the country’

KABUL // A US watchdog that monitors billions of dollars in aid to Afghanistan has issued a bleak progress report, saying the Afghan government controls barely half the country.

The number of security force members in the country is falling and drug production is on the rise, while eradication is down, said the US special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.

The grim new statistics from the watchdog paint a picture of a beleaguered nation still in the grip of a security crisis, despite many years and billions of dollars spent building up Afghanistan’s army and police, which suffered 6,785 fatalities between last January 1 and November 12, and 11,777 wounded.

Those figures are about 35 per cent up on 2015, when about 5,000 security force members were killed.

The one bright spot, the 269page report said, was a noticeable drop in corruption when procuring goods and services. Afghan president Ashraf Ghani launched an anti-corruption campaign after taking power in 2014 elections, which led to the formation of a unity government in which Mr Ghani is president and his election rival, Abdullah Abdullah, is chief executive.

Because this was the first report since Donald Trump took over as US president, John Sopko, the special inspector general, said it was a good opportunity for the new administration to reflect on the US$117 billion (Dh429bn) Washington had invested in Afghanistan since 2002.

In the past three months, investigations by Mr Sopko’s office discovered that a large hotel apartment building project had been abandoned after receiving $85 million in loans from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a US government institution. It revealed that Afghan contractors working on US-funded projects were not being paid.

Other inquiries resulted in the cancellation of a $99m single-source contract. Drug production, meanwhile, soared after the collapse of the Taliban, who had banned it during the last years of their rule. Afghan opium production rose 43 per cent last year over 2015 levels and it is estimated that Afghan farmers last year produced about 4,800 tonnes of the drug. Gen Charles Cleveland, spokesman for Nato forces in Afghanistan, blamed “poor leadership” for the Afghan security force casualties. “Afghan forces continue to be incredibly resilient,” he said.