Inspector General: NATO Withholding Key Information on Taliban Attacks in Afghanistan

NATO data was one of the last metrics still being publicly offered

Trying to find proper metrics to gauge the Afghan War has been a challenge for awhile now. Analysts really muddle through with publicly offered information, and even people like the US Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) struggle, with officials preferring they not be too informed on the state of affairs.

SIGAR’s latest quarterly reported revealed how tough it has been, noting that one of the last sources of data, NATO’s stats on Taliban attacks, are now being withheld both from the public and from the SIGAR office.

Instead of proper numbers, NATO simply told SIGAR that the Taliban “increased attacks against Afghan forces to levels above seasonal norms” in March. This is, to reiterate, not being backed up by any hard data.

It’s also not clear if it is true, as previous comments from Afghanistan suggested that violence was, if higher than they’d hoped after the US-Taliban peace deal, still down markedly from the situation before the peace deal.


Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.