The security situation in Afghanistan “deteriorated” over the second half of 2015, the first fighting season without Americans in the lead, according to a report released Tuesday by the Pentagon.
The 96-page report found that the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan remains “resilient,” despite the Afghan National Defense and Security Force’s willingness to fight and the aid of U.S. training and airstrikes.
“The overall security situation in Afghanistan deteriorated with an increase in effective insurgent attacks and higher ANDSF and Taliban casualties,” the report said. “Although the ANDSF maintain a significant capability advantage over the insurgency, insurgents are improving in their ability to find and exploit ANDSF vulnerabilities, making the security situation still fragile in key areas and at risk of deterioration in other places.”
The Defense Department’s update to Congress on the security situation in Afghanistan was required by the fiscal 2015 National Defense Authorization Act.
The Taliban posed the threat level expected by officials in its traditional strongholds of Helmand, Logar and Wardak provinces. But the report also found a string of violent days in Kunduz and an uptick in attacks in the capital of Kabul, where there was a 27 percent increase in high profile attacks when compared to the January to November time period last year.
Afghans also reported feeling less safe in their home country in 2015 than in 2014, the report found.
Despite these areas of instability, the report noted that the Afghans were able to retake ground that had been seized by the Taliban after several days with the help of U.S. airstrikes in Kunduz.
2016 is the year U.S. forces in Afghanistan are set to draw down further. President Obama announced this year that the 9,800 force level in Afghanistan will remain there for most of 2016, but will draw down to about 5,500 later in the year. Those forces will be based at a small number of bases in Kabul, Bagram, Jalalabad and Kandahar, according to the report.
