The Pentagon is shrouding more and more information on Afghanistan from public view as the Taliban makes historic gains in the 16-year-old war, according to the watchdog overseeing U.S. reconstruction funding to that nation.
For the first time, U.S. Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) classified information on the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) that was previously reported in periodic reports by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). The newly hidden information includes ANDSF casualties, personnel strength, attrition rates, capability assessments and operational readiness of equipment, SIGAR said in the latest quarterly report released Oct. 30.
Of 39 questions directed to USFOR-A in SIGAR’s data call, USFOR-A classified or restricted nine of its responses. USFOR-A told SIGAR that ANDSF casualty data belonged to the Afghan government and the government had requested that it be classified. The questions, included in an appendix to the 309-page report, include the total number of ANDS officers, noncommissioned officers and enlisted personnel within the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the number killed since January.
“More than 60 percent of the approximately $121 billion in U.S. funding for reconstruction in Afghanistan since 2002 has gone to build up the ANDSF,” SIGAR John Sopko writes in the report. “So the increased classification of ANDSF data will hinder SIGAR’s ability to publicly report on progress or failure in a key reconstruction sector.”
The recent increase in secrecy is the second time the Pentagon has sought to classify information about the progress of Afghan security forces, Sopko says. Answers to 31 questions submitted to the NATO-led Operation Resolute Support mission were kept secret when SIGAR published its January 2015 quarterly report. The answers were then made public a few days later.
The most recent report does say that both the ANA and Afghan National Police (ANP) saw a several-thousand-person decrease in force strength compared to last quarter. In that time period, the ANA decreased by roughly 4,000 personnel and the ANP by roughly 5,000 personnel.
All of the information deemed classified is compiled in a secret report annex that is available upon request for officials with appropriate security clearance.
While the Defense Department is withholding new information from public view, the Taliban is gaining ground against NATO-led coalition forces on the ground in Afghanistan.
SIGAR reports the Afghan government’s district and population control deteriorated to its lowest level since it began analyzing district-control data. As of August 2017, there were 54 districts under insurgent control or influence, an increase of nine districts over the last six months. According to USFOR-A, 3.7 million Afghans – 11.4 percent of the population – live in districts under insurgent control or influence, an increase of 700,000 people over the past six months.
As the U.S. military retrenches in Afghanistan, increasing both troop numbers and the frequency of airstrikes, clashes with militants is “at an all-time high,” the report says. More U.S. troops in harm’s way has led to an increase in U.S. casualties, as well.
From Jan. 1 through Aug. 23, 10 U.S. military personnel were killed in Afghanistan, and 48 were wounded, an increase of seven personnel killed and 22 wounded in action since last quarter, and double the personnel killed in action when compared to the same periods in 2015 and 2016, according to the SIGAR report. The number of “insider attacks,” in which Afghan Security Forces personnel attack either their fellow soldiers or coalition forces, has risen sharply to 54 in the last quarter, the report says.
The U.S. recently has taken on a greater combat role in Afghanistan, dropping the most munitions against the Taliban and Islamic State since 2012 – 751 in September – and conducting 2,400 air strikes from January to September, the most since 2014.
The toll on the Afghan civilian population has also risen, with deaths and injuries to women and children up 13 percent compared to the same period last year, the report says. Civilian casualties from coalition and Afghan air strikes in the first nine months of 2017 were up 52 percent compared to the same period the previous year.
“More than two-thirds of these victims were reportedly women and children,” the SIGAR report says. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) “attributed 177 or 38 percent of all civilian casualties from air strikes to international military forces. USFOR-A strongly disagreed with UNAMA’s assessment and methodology, offering instead that it had confirmed 43 civilian casualties caused by international air strikes during this period.”