NATO mission in Afghanistan withholding information about Taliban attacks: US Watchdog

NATO’s US-led mission in Afghanistan is withholding key information about Taliban attacks, a US government watchdog said. The watchdog, named Resolute Support mission (RS) reportedly added that this would make possible insights into the war harder for the public. Previously, RS had disclosed data on the ‘enemy initiated attacks” in Afghanistan providing one of the few existing public metrics into the conflict as well as the strength of the Taliban.

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Afghan peace deal

In its quarterly report released on May 1, the office of Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said RS has stopped proving numbers of the number of attacks, instead, it only gave a short statement that Taliban has increased its attacks in the month of March. This came right after US snd Taliban signed a deal to establish peace in the region. The US military, as per the deal agreement, was supposed to leave Afghanistan within 14 months if the Taliban upholds its commitments that the Afghan territory will not be used for terror activities to target the US and its allies. However, soon after the Taliban launched an offensive and US retaliated, eventually escalating violence in Afghanistan. 

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Increased attacks against Afghan forces

Elaborating further on the attacks, RS said in its statement, "Between March 1 and 31, the Taliban refrained from attacks against coalition forces; however, they increased attacks against (Afghan forces) to levels above seasonal norms.". RS reportedly told SIGAR that it told to restrict data because enemy attacks wee now a critical part of discussions “regarding ongoing political negotiations between US and Taliban". It also noted that Pentagon said that it might release the information in Future. It asserted that a Pentagon spokesman justified the decision to withhold data, citing ongoing talks. 

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