Kabul, Nov. 5, (dpa/GNA) – The daily average of attacks carried out in Afghanistan during the past three months were 50 per cent higher than in the second quarter of this year, a US watchdog said in a report published on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Afghan forces conducted 1,111 ground operations in the past three months, more than double the number conducted in the same period last year, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said.
“The Taliban is calibrating its use of violence to harass and undermine [the Afghan government and security forces], but remain at a level it perceives is within the bounds of the [US-Taliban] agreement,” SIGAR cited the US Department of Defense as saying.
It was referring to a peace deal struck by the United States and the Taliban in February, in spite of which the US increased its airstrikes in defence of Afghan forces over the past three months, the report said.
The Taliban has increased the number of attacks “to encourage a US troop withdrawal and set favorable conditions for a post-withdrawal Afghanistan,” the Department of Defense was cited as saying.
The fighting between the warring sides takes a toll on civilians almost on a daily basis. The UN has documented 2,117 civilian deaths and 3,822 injuries in the first nine months of this year.
The increase in violence by all warring sides in Afghanistan comes after the start of intra-Afghans peace talks in mid-September in Doha, Qatar. However, the talks have made no breakthrough rather faced gridlock over procedural issues.
GNA