KABUL (SW): The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said in a recent report that the Taliban’s controlled areas have nearly doubled in 2017. In this report, the areas under the control of Government and the Taliban from 2015 to 2017 have been analyzed.
According to the report, in 2016, the Afghan government controlled 72 percent of the country’s territory; the Taliban controlled 7 percent, and the remaining 21 percent were the ‘fighting zones’ between the government and the armed opposition groups. However, one year later in 2017, the government controlled 57 percent; the Taliban controlled 13 percent and 30 percent was declared as “fighting zones”.
According to the report, the Afghan government plans to control 80 percent of Afghanistan’s territory over the next two years.
Dawlat Waziri, spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense challenged the findings of the reports of SIGAR, saying that except 10 districts all other territories of Afghanistan are under the control of the Afghan government.
According to Waziri, the Taliban and ISIS have been engaging in guerrilla warfare and bombings only.
SIGAR's report also highlighted the increase in the security incidents. In this report, according to the UN Secretary-General, in the first 11 months of 2017, a total of 21105 security incidents have been recorded, showing a 1% increase in comparison to previous year.
SIGAR reports the increase in the Taliban’s controlled areas while in the last ten days only, Kabul has seen three bloody attacks.
ENDS
