Taliban Assassinations Of Afghan Pilots "Worrisome": US Government Watchdog

At least seven Afghan pilots have been assassinated off base in recent months, two senior Afghan government officials said.

Taliban assassinations of Afghan pilots this month mark another "worrisome development" for the Afghan Air Force as it reels from a surge in fighting, a U.S. government watchdog said in a report released on Thursday. At least seven Afghan pilots have been assassinated off base in recent months, two senior Afghan government officials told Reuters, part of what the Islamist Taliban says is a campaign to see U.S.-trained Afghan pilots "targeted and eliminated." As the United States prepares to formally end its 20-year military mission in Afghanistan on Aug. 31, Taliban insurgents are quickly seizing territory once controlled by the U.S.-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani, raising fears they could eventually try to take the capital Kabul. The Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), in its quarterly report to Congress covering the three-month period through June, broadly portrayed an Afghan Air Force (AAF) under growing strain from battling the Taliban amid the U.S. withdrawal - and becoming less ready to fight.