The Taliban is openly active in 70% of Afghanistan’s districts, says BBC study
Washington — The Taliban is openly active in 70% of Afghanistan’s districts, fully controlling 4% of the country and demonstrating an open physical presence in another 66%, according to a BBC study published on Tuesday. The BBC estimate, which it said was based on conversations with more than 1,200 individual sources in all districts of the South Asian country, was significantly higher than the most recent assessment by the Nato-led coalition, which said on Tuesday that the Taliban contested or controlled only 44% of Afghan districts as of October 2017. Afghanistan has been reeling over the past nine days from a renewed spate of violence that is adding scrutiny to the latest, more aggressive, US-backed strategy to bolster Afghan forces battling the Taliban in a 16-year-old war. A bomb hidden in an ambulance struck the city centre and killed more than 100 people, just more than a week after an attack on the Hotel Intercontinental, also in Kabul, which left more than 20 people dead, i...
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