The quarterly report by SIGAR has brought attention to the ANDSF casualties under Taliban pressure to point that these developments have”spurred questions for the Department of Defense officials”. Commander of the US Central Command Gen Votel confirmed that the ANDSF casualties this year had soared viz last year.
Resolute Support’s statement pointed to a pattern of these casualties, “Trends indicate that number of checkpoint casualties have increased while the number of patrol casualties has decreased.”
As per “unclassified” data referred to by SIGAR, it was found that the ANDSF had not made much ‘progress’ in pressuring the Taliban and in fact failed to gain greater control of some districts and territories.
When it comes to control or influence of Afghan government over districts in general, the SIGAR report found that since 2015, the number has been lowest ever (55.5%).
But ANDSF has also struggled to keep up its personnel strength, decreasing by 1914 people since last quarter and 8827 since last year. Department of Defense, when asked, cited reasons as personnel killed in action, absentee issue, or declining rate of reenlisting.
The silver lining amongst this data found by SIGAR was the successes by forces against the IS-K.
