Taliban announces its spring offensive

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban announced their annual spring offensive in Afghanistan on Wednesday, at a time when insurgents are already regularly launching attacks and battling security forces.

The group issued a statement Wednesday saying the “Al-Khandaq” offensive would make use of “new and intricate tactics” aimed at “crushing, killing and capturing American invaders and their supporters.”

The onset of spring has traditionally brought an uptick in violence in Afghanistan, as melting snows allow fighters to more easily traverse the mountainous terrain.

But in recent years the Taliban and an Islamic State affiliate have carried out near-daily attacks in all seasons. The Taliban have seized control of districts across the country and regularly target Kabul, the capital.

Afghanistan’s central government has been losing control of swaths of territory to Taliban and other forces for years. According to the Pentagon, as of October, about 56 percent of Afghanistan’s population lived in areas under government control, with 14 percent controlled by insurgents and the remaining 30 percent in contested areas.

The U.S. formally ended its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2014, but thousands of American troops remain in the country in a counterterrorism and supporting role. President Donald Trump’s administration has sent thousands of additional troops to try to change the course of America’s longest war.

Gunmen attacked a checkpoint in Kabul late Tuesday, killing three Afghan police, said district commander Ghulam Sarwar. No one has claimed the attack, in which the assailants escaped.

Another three police were killed in a similar attack in the western Baghdis province early Wednesday, according to Mohammad Naser Nazari, a provincial council member.

In the southern Kandahar province, a local journalist was shot and killed, said Zia Durrani, spokesman for the provincial police chief. Abdul Manan Arghand, a TV journalist, was fatally shot by two gunmen on a motorcycle as he drove to work, he said.

In the U.S., meanwhile, a Pentagon watchdog faulted the World Bank and Afghanistan’s government for failing to shield billions of dollars in aid from potential waste or misuse, saying long-identified weaknesses remain in a program that provides 40 percent of nonmilitary expenditures in the country.

“The Afghan government is not meeting its responsibilities to account for how it uses ARTF funding and to safeguard the funds from risks of misuse, waste, and fraud,” according to the report on the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund by the Defense Department’s special inspector general. “The World Bank’s lack of transparency limits donors’ and the public’s knowledge about ARTF progress and results reported.”

The fund was established in 2002 to provide for the rebuilding of Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Supported by 34 nations and administered by the World Bank, the fund is designed to bolster government and economic development programs and to protect civilian rights. Of the $10 billion contributed to the fund since 2002, the U.S. has provided more than $3 billion, making it the single largest donor.

The report by the watchdog, known as the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, is another sign of the troubles the U.S., its allies and President Ashraf Ghani’s government are having in improving governance while staving off the advances by the Taliban and Islamic State.