Report: Afghan forces still shrinking, security gaps growing

WASHINGTON (AP) — As the Trump administration pushes for peace in Afghanistan, a new U.S. watchdog file says Afghan safety forces are shrinking, gaps in security are growing, and the Taliban are largely holding their own despite a surge in American bombing.
These tendencies reflect what U.S. military officials call a stalemated war, extra than 17 years after U.S. forces invaded following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Gauges of battlefield momentum have changed little over the past year, according to a watchdog agency known as the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. In a record to Congress on Thursday, it said the Afghan government controls or influences 54 percent of districts, down from 56 percent a year earlier, and the Taliban’s share slipped from 14 percentage to 12 percent. Contested territory extended from 30 percent to 34 percent.
The Pentagon insists that military pressure on the Taliban is mounting. Last year the U.S. vastly improved its use of air strength in support of Afghan forces. According to U.S. Central Command data, U.S. aircraft dropped 6,823 bombs in the first 11 months of 2018. That compares with 4,361 bombs dropped in all of 2017.
Even so, the Afghan government has been unable to expand its management of the country, and analysts say an outright military victory by either side is beyond reach.

Amid reviews that President Donald Trump is thinking about withdrawing as many as half of the 14,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has been publicly emphasizing the sacrifices his troops are making in fighting the Taliban. Ghani was once suggested to have stated at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, final weekend that 45,000 Afghan security personnel had died considering September 2014. President Barack Obama ended the U.S. ground fight position against the Taliban at the give up of 2014 while focusing extra on education and advising Afghan forces.
The heavy losses suffered by Afghan forces partly explain why Kabul is unable to build its military and police to their authorized power of a combined 352,000. Thursday’s inspector usual document said the military and police are at a combined total of just over 308,000, down from 312,000 a year earlier and nearly 316,000 in 2016. The price of arming, training, paying and sustaining these forces falls largely to the U.S. government at extra than $4 billion a year.
Although U.S. commanders have long argued they are making progress toward enabling the Afghan government to shield its own people, Trump has stated many times that he doubts the wisdom of continuing the war. His Afghanistan envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, said in current days the U.S. and the Taliban agreed in principle to a framework for peace, even though important elements are yet to be settled, including buy-in by the Afghan government.
Taliban officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were no longer approved to talk to the media, stated the two aspects had reached an understanding about the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops and that the militant team had made assurances that Afghan soil would now not be used once more for assaults against the United States or others.
Afghan officers hope Trump will explain his intentions in similarly detail during his State of the Union tackle next week.
In a report to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats stated neither the Afghan government nor the Taliban will be in a position to gain a strategic military advantage in 2019 if U.S.-led coalition support stays at current levels.
“Afghan forces generally have secured cities and other government strongholds, but the Taliban has increased large-scale attacks, and Afghan security suffers from a large number of forces being tied down in defensive missions, mobility shortfalls, and a lack of reliable forces to hold recaptured territory,” his report said.