Warning Signs: Report Says That Afghan Military Losing Control of the Countryside to the Taliban

Brooks Tigner

February 18, 2015

Kabul is losing control of Afghan countryside, EU report states

Afghanistan’s government is losing control of its territory outside major population centres to the country’s insurgent groups, says the EU’s asylum agency.

"The overall trend is one of decreasing government control outside the larger towns and cities, escalating violence and more insurgent attacks," observed the European Asylum Support Office (EASO).

In its latest report, Afghanistan Security Situation , released on 13 February, EASO noted that Taliban, Hezb-e Islami Afghanistan, and other insurgent groups operating in the country are carrying out more large-scale attacks against the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).

Referring to the 31 December 2014 termination of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, the 211-page report says the withdrawal of foreign troops “has had an impact on the areas that they used to secure. In those areas, which are now left to the ANSF, insurgents increasingly take control of territory and attack administrative centres and security installations”.

According to EASO, the provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, and Nangarhar suffered the most violent incidents for the first 10 months of 2014, with Kunar being the most volatile province, although Faryab is rising in violence “with a high number of civilian casualties”.

Noting that Afghanistan’s security forces bore their highest numbers of casualties in 2013-14 since the insurgency started, the report says that “for the first time in the conflict, insurgents have been able to inflict nearly as many ANSF casualties as they suffered themselves”.

More than 13,000 ANSF personnel have been killed in the conflict - the majority since 2010 - according to Afghan government data.

Afghanistan’s insurgents increasingly use pressure-plate improvised explosive devices (IEDs), activated by the victim, as well as remote-controlled devices “which [are] mostly used to target the ANSF, but cause a lot of collateral damage,” EASO said.

However, the EU agency also reports that for the first time since 2009, when precise numbers of civilian casualties began to be recorded by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, more civilians were killed and injured by rockets, mortars, grenades, and crossfire in 2014 than from IEDs and other forms of violence.

The number of civilians killed in Afghanistan rose 17% from 1,342 in 2013 to 1,564 in 2014, while the number of injuries ballooned by 28% from 2,577 in 2013 to 3,289 in 2014, the EASO report states.

Worrisome for Resolute Support - NATO’s follow-on security training mission in Afghanistan that began on 1 January - is the persistent problem of ‘green-on-blue’ insider attacks against ANSF and Western personnel in the country. The phenomenon plagued the ISAF in its last years.

Among the more alarming attacks was the 30 January infiltration by a gunman, wearing an Afghan army uniform, into the ANSF’s helicopter base within the secure zone of Kabul’s international airport. His attack left three US security contractors dead before he was killed.

According to Edinburgh International, a London-based security services provider, the nature of insider attacks during 2014 demonstrates “an improved capability and intent among Taliban agents” to hit the country’s remaining coalition advisors.

Moreover, the fact that the Kabul airport assailant was able to penetrate such a high-security zone suggests he “was either a member of the security forces or had been able to gain access to high-level clearance documents,” Edinburgh International said in its weekly online analysis of global security on 5 February. “The Kabul airport shooting raises the prospect of further internal security challenges at NATO facilities.”