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US Helps Anti-Taliban Militias In Afghanistan
[Quqnoos] American officials have begun helping a number of anti-Taliban militias in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, The New York Times reports.
The officials say they are hoping the plan, called the Community Defense Initiative, will bring together thousands of gunmen to protect their neighborhoods from Taliban insurgents, the report said. Already there are hundreds of Afghans who are acting on their own against the Taliban, the newspaper quoted officials as saying. The militias could also help fill the gap while the Afghan Army and police forces train and grow, The Times said. "The idea is to get people to take responsibility for their own security," the paper quoted an unnamed senior US military official as saying. "In many places they are already doing that." The growth of the anti-Taliban militias runs the risk that they could turn on one another, or against the Afghan and American governments. The Americans say they will keep the groups small and will limit the scope of their activities to protecting villages and manning checkpoints. For now, they are not arming the groups because they already have guns, the article further noted. These checks aim to avoid repeating mistakes of the past -- either creating more Afghan warlords, who have defied the government's authority for years, or arming Islamic militants, some of whom have come back to haunt the United States. Posted by: Fred 2009-11-23 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=284037 |