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US Argues Diplomacy Demands Withholding Taliban Attack Data

Jeff Seldin

   The Defense Department is defending its decision to withhold
   information on the frequency and success of Taliban attacks, saying it
   is necessary if the United States is going to be able to help usher in
   an era of peace in Afghanistan.

   Officials Friday pushed back against a U.S. government watchdog's
   report that said restricting access to the data was making it difficult
   to assess the security situation as Afghan and Taliban officials have
   struggled to build on a U.S.-Taliban peace-building deal signed in
   February.

   "The decision was that we're working toward a better solution and a
   better place for Afghanistan, and that the sharing of that information
   would not move that ball forward," Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman
   told reporters.
   But Hoffman also made clear that Washington has not been happy with the
   recent scope and pace of Taliban attacks.

   "We are not pleased with the level of violence in Afghanistan. The
   level of violence by the Taliban is unacceptably high," Hoffman said,
   adding it "is not conducive to a diplomatic solution."

   Impediment to assessment

   In the report, released Friday, the Special Inspector General for
   Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) warned that the sudden refusal to
   share the data on enemy-initiated attacks (EIA) and effective
   enemy-initiated attacks (EEIA) was making it increasingly difficult to
   assess safety and stability.

   "This EIA data was one of the last remaining metrics SIGAR was able to
   use to report publicly on the security situation in
   Afghanistan,"Inspector General John Sopko wrote, noting it was not the
   first time such information had been withheld.

   SIGAR chastised U.S. defense officials in May 2019 after Resolute
   Support -- the NATO-led training and advisory mission in Afghanistan --
   stopped providing district-level stability assessments, which showed
   Afghan forces losing ground to the Taliban.

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