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| Afghanistan |
| NATO Seeks Afghan Police in the South |
| 2010-11-14 |
| ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan — Gen. David H. Petraeus, the overall commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, is moving to sharply increase Afghan police forces drawn from villages in southern provinces, and is employing the help of former mujahedeen commanders to recruit them, NATO officials said. The mujahedeen were Afghan guerrilla fighters trained and backed by the United States to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. They later fought against the Taliban and helped topple them from power in 2001. Under President Hamid Karzai, they were gradually disarmed and demobilized. But many maintain fearsome reputations and have deep links in communities that can be revived to gather intelligence and raise forces quickly. NATO commanders hope that they can be used to help raise as many as 30,000 local police officers within six months, providing a critical element to help the government and coalition forces hold on to areas newly cleared of Taliban insurgents, the officials said. Previous efforts to raise local defense forces have failed, largely because of a lack of support in communities and from the government. The police, meanwhile, have a Though some NATO commanders remain cautious about using the mujahedeen, others say the village-based forces can work as part of the coordinated military and civilian strategy that has begun to gain traction in the south since the arrival of 30,000 more American troops and thousands of extra Afghan troops this year. Under the plan, the new forces will be approved by local councils, or shuras, to ensure that they have the support of all constituencies, that old rivalries between commanders and tribes are not reactivated, and that one faction does not gather too much power to itself. “Then you partner it up effectively with I.S.A.F. and with the Afghan National Police, then you have got a very real possibility of keeping the Taliban out,” said Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, the departing British commander of coalition forces in the southern region, referring to the International Security Assistance Force of NATO. Still, many, even in NATO, have reservations about recruiting and arming loosely controlled forces. Many Afghans, too, including President Karzai, are wary of empowering private militias, given the factional fighting among mujahedeen groups in the 1990s and the more recent tensions caused by Afghanistan’s private security companies. General Petraeus had agreed with President Karzai to a pilot program of 10,000 such local Afghan policemen shortly after taking command in July. Recruitment has already begun in some places to expand that plan, with the blessing of the Karzai government. |
| Posted by:Steve White |