Monitor: U.S. not releasing Taliban data
KABUL — The U.S. mission in Afghanistan has for the first time refused to publicly release its data on insurgent attacks amid the implementation of a peace agreement between the United States and the Taliban, an American watchdog said Friday.
The decision not to release the data comes as the Trump administration is eager for the U.S.Taliban agreement to be seen as successful so that President Trump can meet his commitments on pulling troops out of Afghanistan.
Washington’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, which monitors billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Afghanistan, expressed its concern in its quarterly report, which also discusses the reduction in ground operations of Afghan forces.
John Sopko, who heads the watchdog, wrote that data on the Taliban and other militant attacks “was one of the last remaining metrics SIGAR was able to use to report publicly on the security situation in Afghanistan.”
The report said U.S. forces have classified all casualty information from Afghan national defense and security forces for the first quarter of 2020. However, the office of Afghanistan’s national security adviser earlier this week said the Taliban have carried out 2,804 attacks since the peace agreement between the Taliban and U.S. was signed on Feb. 29.
Army Lt. Col. Thomas Campbell, a Pentagon spokesperson, said data on insurgent attacks are important to discussions between agencies regarding the Taliban’s adherence to the peace agreement.
“It will be releasable to the public when no longer integral to these deliberations, or the deliberations are concluded,” he said.
Campbell did say that enemyinitiated attacks during the month of March exceeded seasonal norms.
“The U.S., NATO and our international partners have been clear that the Taliban’s level of violence against the Afghan
National Defense and Security Forces is unacceptably high,“he said.
U.S. officials and the Afghan government have repeatedly urged the Taliban to reduce their attacks in the wake of the agreement, but the insurgent group has continued to target Afghan security outposts.