Agencies :
The Afghan government faces an “existential crisis” after the Taliban doubled its attacks following the February 2020 deal with the United States, a watchdog report says. The report (PDF), published on Thursday, said Taliban attacks on Afghan targets surged from 6,700 in the three months up to the Doha agreement to 13,242 in the September-November 2020 period.
Attacks have stayed above 10,000 in each subsequent three-month period, according to the report by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). While the rise in attacks has long been clear, data was previously available to demonstrate how intense the rebels’ offensive had become.
The US agreed to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan with the expectation that the Taliban would negotiate a peace deal with the Kabul government. Since then, the Taliban-government talks have stalled but the US has steadily pulled out troops to a level of only several hundred now, with an August 31 deadline for full withdrawal.
The SIGAR report makes clear that the Doha agreement, instead of propelling Taliban-Kabul talks, unleashed a Taliban offensive that caught government forces unprepared and increased the number of civilian deaths. Over the period of January to March of 2020, there were 510 civilian deaths and 799 injuries, the report said, quoting data from the US-NATO joint force in Afghanistan.
After that the numbers surged, hitting a high of 1,058 deaths and 1,959 injured in the third quarter of 2020 and continuing at high levels. The latest data, for April and May this year, showed 705 civilian deaths and 1,330 casualties, the SIGAR report said. “The overall trend is clearly unfavourable to the Afghan government, which could face an existential crisis if it isn’t addressed and reversed,” said the inspector general, John Sopko.
He said the report offered a sobering picture that contrasted with “the pervasiveness of overoptimism” that characterised US-led efforts to rebuild and strengthen Afghanistan and the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars to the US government.
“The news coming out of Afghanistan this quarter has been bleak,” the report said.
Afghan air force overstretched
Faced by a new Taliban offensive, the report said, the Afghan government security force “appeared surprised and unready, and is now on its backfoot”.
“Particularly concerning was the speed and ease with which the Taliban seemingly wrested control of districts in Afghanistan’s northern provinces, once a bastion of anti-Taliban sentiment.”
The Afghan air force, considered to be one of the few remaining advantages the government in Kabul has in the fight against the Taliban, is increasingly overstretched, said the watchdog.
All Afghan aircraft were operating at 25 percent over their recommended scheduled maintenance intervals, with five out of seven aircraft experiencing decreases in readiness in June alone, says the SIGAR report.
The agency said that, for example, the fleet of AC-208 light attack combat aircraft had maintained 93-per-cent readiness between April and May, but that the indicator decreased to 63 percent in June.
SIGAR added that all Afghan aircraft and crew were “overtasked” due to increased requests for air support, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and resupply missions.
The decrease in readiness coincides with an increase in offensives by the Taliban and a near-complete US exit from the war-torn country.
Meanwhile, the United States said on Wednesday it was deeply troubled by reports of escalating attacks on civilians as the Taliban sweep across Afghanistan and Washington pulls out its last remaining troops and ends its longest war.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on a visit to India, said the only path to peace in Afghanistan was through negotiations, which all parties must take seriously.
Taliban insurgents have captured districts across Afghanistan and seized vital border control points in recent weeks, as Washington withdraws its last troops after 20 years. The Pentagon now estimates that the fighters control more than half of Afghanistan’s district centres.
The surge has raised the prospect that the militants could return to power. Millions of people fled their extreme violence during their last period of rule from 1996-2001, when they staged public executions of their foes, banned women from work and education and hosted Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network.
The Taliban say they will treat civilians well if they return to power, and will not allow the country to be used as a base for international terrorism.
Describing reports of attacks on civilians as “deeply, deeply troubling”, Blinken said: “An Afghanistan that commits atrocities against its own people would become a pariah state.
“There’s only one path, and that’s at the negotiating table, to resolve the conflict peacefully.”
The United Nations reported this week that civilian casualties had been surging in recent weeks, with as many killed in May-June as in the previous four months. The report did not cover casualties in July, when fighting has intensified further.
Afghans in government-held areas have been alarmed by domestic media reports in recent days of abductions and killings of civilians in areas where the Taliban have advanced. The Taliban deny they are carrying out revenge killings.
US President Joe Biden has ordered all US troops out of the country, fulfilling a policy pledge made by his predecessor Donald Trump, despite warnings from American generals of the potential for renewed civil war without foreign troops to protect the Kabul government.
Peace talks between the government and the Taliban in Qatar have largely stalled, with the Taliban showing little interest in negotiating while they are gaining on the battlefield.
