By Tamim Hamid
The U.S government's Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), said in its latest quarterly report, issued on Tuesday, that 6,785 Afghan security force members were killed between January 1 and November 12 last year, with another 11,777 wounded.
Going on previous reports, this is an increase of about 35 percent against the same period in 2015, when some 5,000 security forces were killed.
The SIGAR report stated that the “majority of ANDSF casualties continue to be the result of direct-fire attacks, with IED explosions and mine strikes accounting for much lower levels of casualties.”
SIGAR’s analysis of the most recent data provided by U.S Forces in Afghanistan (USFOR-A) suggests that the security situation in the country has not improved this quarter.
The numbers of Afghan security forces are decreasing, while both casualties and the number of districts under insurgent control or influence are increasing, the report stated.
USFOR-A found that about 57.2 percent of the country’s 407 districts are under Afghan government control or influence as of November 15, 2016 – a 6.2 percent decrease from the 63.4 percent reported the previous quarter ending late August, and a nearly 15 percent decrease since November 2015.
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