- BBC study says militia fully control country’s four percent; shows physical presence in another 66pc
WASHINGTON: The Taliban are openly active in 70 percent of Afghanistan’s districts, fully controlling four percent of the country and demonstrating an open physical presence in another 66 percent, according to a BBC study.
The BBC estimate, which it said was based on conversations with more than 1,200 individual sources in all districts of the South Asian country, was significantly higher than the most recent assessment by the NATO-led coalition.
On Tuesday, the coalition said that the Taliban contested or controlled only 44 percent of Afghan districts as of October 2017. Afghanistan has been reeling over the past nine days from a renewed spate of violence that is adding scrutiny to the latest, more aggressive US-backed strategy to bolster Afghan forces battling the Taliban in a 16-year-old war.
A bomb hidden in an ambulance struck the city center and killed more than 100 people, just over a week after an attack on the Hotel Intercontinental, also in Kabul, which left more than 20 people dead, including four US citizens.
The BBC counted 399 districts in Afghanistan, but the NATO-led force counted 407. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear. The study said that the Afghan government controlled 122 districts, or about 30 percent of the country. Still, it noted that did not mean that they were free from attacks.
“For example, Kabul and other major cities suffered major attacks – launched from adjacent areas, or by sleeper cells – during the research period, as well as before and after,” the report said. About the study, the Pentagon did not comment directly but pointed to the latest figures by the NATO-led coalition asserting that about 56 percent of Afghan territory was under the government control or influence.
Captain Thomas Gresback, a spokesman for the coalition in Kabul, said the BBC estimate overstated the militants’ influence impact. “This is a criminal network, not a government in waiting,” he said in an emailed statement. “What really matters is not the number of districts held, but population controlled,” he said.
“RS assesses that around 12 percent of the population is actually under full Taliban control,” he said, referring to the Resolute Support mission. The study by Britain’s public broadcaster quoted a spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani playing down the findings. The study also said that the Islamic State had a presence in 30 districts, but noted it did not fully control any of them.
