The U.S. military is sharply restricting the information an independent Pentagon watchdog can make public about the key measures of success in the war, as the Afghan government loses its grip on more territory and the pace of combat and civilian casualties rises.

The latest quarterly report to Congress by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, contains a disclaimer that the U.S. military command In Afghanistan has now classified metrics that have been routinely reported for years.