Washington classifies data on districts under Taliban’s control

Monitoring Desk

KABUL: The Pentagon has restricted the release of information gauging the success of the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, a US government watchdog alleged on Tuesday.

Data on the number of districts and people living in territory under insurgent or government control, or areas contested by both, was kept from the public, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said.

In its latest quarterly report, the watchdog said:  “The number of districts controlled or influenced by the Afghan government had been one of the last remaining publicly available indicators for members of Congress  and for the American public of how the 16-year-long US effort to secure Afghanistan is faring.”

According to the Stars and Stripe, it is the first time that SIGAR has been asked not to release unclassified information to the American taxpayer. The Department of Defense offered SIGAR no justification for the new restrictions.

John Sopko called the policy change troubling. Since January 2016, SIGAR’s quarterly reports have included tallies on how many of Afghanistan’s 407 districts are controlled by the government.

The most recent figures, published on Oct. 30, 231 of those districts (56.8 percent) were controlled or influenced by the government of President Ashraf Ghani.

The number of districts controlled or influenced by the Taliban rose to 54 in the October 2017 report from 33 in the October 2016 report.

SIGAR said the Pentagon had also asked it for the first time since 2009 to classify the figures detailing the size and attrition rates of Afghan security forces.

Reuters quoted Sopko as saying: “The implication is that the average American who reads our reports, or reads your press accounts of it, has no meaningful ability to analyse how his or her money is being spent on Afghanistan.”

Meanwhile, the Department of Defense denied instructing SIGAR to withhold the data. Instead it was the NATO-led Resolute Support coalition that made the determination, it explained.

“The Department continues to work with SIGAR, US Forces-Afghanistan, and NATO Resolute Support to resolve concerns about restrictions on information that was previously unclassified,” Lieutenant Colonel Michael Andrews said.