Afghanistan a grim place as America’s longest war drags on
- New report by a US government watchdog paints a discouraging portrait of Afghanistan
- US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has insisted that Trump’s strategy to fight the Taliban was working
Afghanistan’s dire situation 17 years after US intervention is getting even worse, with government control of territory continuing to slide, narcotics output rising and a worsening drought displacing more people than the armed conflict, according to a Pentagon watchdog.
President Ashraf Ghani’s government controlled or influenced about 55.5 per cent of Afghan districts as of July, the least since November 2015, the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said Wednesday in its latest quarterly report.
And after US$8.9 billion in US counternarcotics appropriations, poppy production surged in 2017 and is now four times higher than in 2002, the year after American forces arrived.
“Afghanistan’s narcotics industry helps finance the insurgency, supports criminal networks, fosters public corruption, and undermines the Afghan state,” said John Sopko, whose office is known as SIGAR.
Looking over the broader situation facing the country, his report added that “the last few months saw several discouraging developments”.
While the report covered the period through September 30, it acknowledged more recent grim setbacks, including an attack on an election-security meeting targeting the top US commander in the country and key police and intelligence officials in Kandahar province.