AFGHANISTAN: Government ‘loses more ground’ to Taliban

The US-backed Afghan government has lost control of a number of districts to the Taliban, while casualties among security forces have reached record levels, a US watchdog agency has said. The latest quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) underlines the heavy pressure on the government in Kabul even as the […]

The US-backed Afghan government has lost control of a number of districts to the Taliban, while casualties among security forces have reached record levels, a US watchdog agency has said.

The latest quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) underlines the heavy pressure on the government in Kabul even as the United States has opened initial contacts with the Taliban on possible peace talks.

“The control of Afghanistan’s districts, population, and territory overall became more contested this quarter,” the agency said in its report.

The Taliban have still not succeeded in taking a major provincial centre despite assaults on Farah in western Afghanistan and Ghazni in the centre this year but they control large stretches of the countryside.

Data from Afghanistan’s NATO-led Resolute Support mission showed that government forces had “failed to gain greater control or influence over districts, population, and territory this quarter”, the agency said.