Period in which data was collected: January to November 2008
Data source: Data for the maps was gathered from public insurgent activity reports throughout the course of January to November 2008. These came from the ICOS research team in Afghanistan, who also documented local perceptions. These are only publicly recorded attacks and kidnappings; the real number is almost certainly higher as not all incidents enter the public domain.
Calculation of statistics: To calculate percentages, the total area of Afghanistan was divided by the total area hosting a permanent/substantial/light Taliban presence.
KEY:
Dark pink Heavy Taliban presence: provinces with an average insurgent attack (lethal or non lethal) of one or more per week.
Light pink Substantial Taliban presence: areas are marked as such due to both the amount of insurgent attacks (more than one per month), and information gathered by our field research teams in Afghanistan. If a province had less than ten attacks before November, yet residents believed Taliban were active locally, the province is marked as having a substantial presence.
Grey Grey signifies less than one act of insurgent violence per month in the period up to November.
The dissection of the city based on levels of Taliban/criminal activity has been done by assessing security reports and the information gathered by field research teams.
Heavy Taliban/criminal activity (one attack per month)
Police Districts (PD) 5 and 9 have both seen one or more insurgent attack per month to date this year. We do not believe all attacks necessarily enter the public domain so the actual number could be higher.
While PD 2 and 10 have both seen just eight attacks each, missing the one per month ratio to be marked as heavy, Kabul residents state that there was permanent insurgent and criminal activity there.
Substantial Taliban/criminal activity
The PDs labeled as having substantial activity have seen numerous acts of insurgent and criminal violence, and are areas where Kabul’s population feel that security forces have little capacity to protect them from growing levels of criminal activity.
Lower Taliban/criminal activity
These areas have seen less or no violent/criminal activity this year and where residents feel there is a higher degree of safety and easier movement.
