U.S. military attacks

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction or SIGAR says the U.S. military attacks has failed to increase the Afghan government’s control over its population. The reports says that U.S. casualties are increasing, too, twice the number killed in action in the same periods in 2015 and 2016. SIGAR said that despite $8.7 billion in U.S. aid for counter-narcotics efforts, opium production is up 87 percent in the last year in Afghanistan. The report warned that U.S. and Afghan officials have adopted unrealistic expectations for the development of untapped mineral resources in the country. Even with nearly a half billion dollars in U.S. aid, the report said that mining revenues only supplied three-tenths of one percent of Afghanistan’s $6.5 billion national budget. John Sopko, the responsible for the report, criticized the U.S. Defense Department for not release already public data on specific districts in Afghanistan. He added, ‘Historically, the number of districts controlled or influenced by the government has been falling since SIGAR began reporting on it, while the number controlled or influenced by the insurgents has been rising. The report noted the Asia Foundation, which promotes the improvement of lives across the continent, found in its annual survey that only slightly more than half of Afghan respondents believed that reconciliation with Taliban insurgents in the country was possible and that about 16 percent of Afghans had ‘a lot’ or at least some sympathy for the Taliban.