Security

Finding 'Sons of Afghanistan' Ain't Easy

NPR’s Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson recently spent some time with a Special Forces team setting up the Afghan Public Protection Force, an experiment in giving weapons, cash, and authority to local militias to keep insurgents at bay. It’s a repeat on a more modest scale of the ‘Sons of Iraq‘ program that helped restore order in […]

guardians-afghan-nprNPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson recently spent some time with a Special Forces team setting up the Afghan Public Protection Force, an experiment in giving weapons, cash, and authority to local militias to keep insurgents at bay.

It's a repeat on a more modest scale of the 'Sons of Iraq' program that helped restore order in Iraq's Anbar province. But as Noah has pointed out here before, the real question is whether this "neighborhood watch" approach will translate to rural Afghanistan.

In today's installment of her two-part series, Nelson accompanies the Green Berets to villages in Wardak Province. They find the villagers are reluctant to form units of the Public Protection Force -- also known as the Guardians -- and they are wary of the central government's intentions. In the village of Karimdad, a Special Forces trooper named "Joe" tries to persuade residents to join the force:

The villagers balk. They complain that the policemen at the new checkpoint bully them.

Gol Rahim, a farmer, says they are being kept from planting and watering their fields and moving around their village at night.

'We know the enemy comes here, but we don't know who he is. The police give us a hard time because they think we are involved,' Rahim says.

Joe tells them that wouldn't happen if villagers formed a unit of the Public Protection Force.

'If they are here instead of us being here, they can tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys,' Joe says.

This vignette says it all. Afghanistan has had a longstanding problem with corrupt police and unaccountable local warlords; the men at the checkpoint are from the Afghan Civil Order Police, part of the Interior Ministry. Will the Public Protection Force turn into another predatory local militia?

Wardak is an important testing ground for the pilot program. As Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, the outgoing commander of Combined Joint Task Force-101, told reporters yesterday, instability in Wardak and Lowgar provinces had created "a perception that Kabul was surrounded and that we needed something done." The U.S. military has contributed a full brigade combat team called Task Force Spartan to the region -- which previously saw very few coalition troops.

[PHOTO: Atlas Press via NPR]

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