(MARCUS YAM / LOS ANGELES TIMES) Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images Residents returned to homes and property disfigured by all the physical impact of the fighting, ranging from gunfire to airstrikes. An estimated 9,500 families displaced in the battles began to rush back. The bridges into Arghandab that were destroyed in the fighting were patched together by makeshift HESCO barriers and gravel. Arghandab, a district lush with fruit trees and famous for its pomegranates, peaches, mulberries (and marijuana), was recently liberated when government forces managed to claw back some of the gains Taliban fighters have made in the last six months around the districts surrounding Kandahar. He called the situation “unprecedented.”ĪRGHANDAB DISTRICT, AFGHANISTAN - MAY 4, 2021: Soldiers pass time at an Afghan National Army base in Arghandab District, Afghanistan, Tuesday, May 4, 2021. Instead, Sopko said that there have been multiple requests for information which have been declined. He also quoted President Biden saying that the “watchdogs are back” in his administration.

He described the development as “particularly troubling” because the departments are legally required to share information with his office. While these agencies have typically provided assistance to the watchdog, Sopko wrote in a letter reviewed by CNN that “agency officials now appear to have adopted a premeditated position of obstruction.” The information has been required by multiple congressionally mandated audits, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) director John Sopko said in the letter to Secretary of State Tony Blinken and the USAID Administrator Samantha Power on Wednesday. The State Department and United States Agency for International Development have not provided information to a government watchdog about the fall of the Afghan government during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, according to a letter from the watchdog’s director.

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