LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan -- For at least the sixth time in as many years, there's a new effort underway to form up local militias to protect Afghan communities from Taliban attack. Only don't call them militias. NATO's preferred term, this time around, is "Afghan Local Police." Think of them as neighborhood watch - a neighborhood watch with AK-47s.
David Axe spent six weeks in Afghanistan, on the war's dangerous and largely forgotten eastern front.
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As usual, the local fighters will wear blue, carry automatic weapons, and -- in the beginning, at least -- collect a modest paycheck from NATO. But besides a new name, there's at least one key difference between this militia and its predecessors. Unlike attempts numbers one through five, the latest local-police program was initiated by Afghans, and will quickly transition to Afghan control. Those are the best reasons to bet on its success ... if you're the type to make risky bets.
On Monday, Afghanistan's new year, the first batch of around 50 trainees from Pul-e-Alam district arrived at Forward Operating Base Shank, in northern Logar province 50 miles south of Kabul, for induction and a few minutes of drill-and-ceremony instruction using a single red-painted, mock AK-47.
Watching the motley crew shamble through their marches, it was easy to dismiss them as soldier wannabes. But history proves that local guys, adequately armed and trained, can make the difference between victory and defeat in the early hours of a Taliban assault.
In the southern town of Chora in the summer of 2007, a NATO-recruited and -led local militia -- the "Afghan National Auxiliary Police" -- helped hold the line against a massive Taliban force, giving the Dutch army time to organize air and artillery strikes that eventually pushed back the attackers. Granted, around 100 Afghan civilians died in the bombardment, but that was the fault of NATO, rather than the cops.
Even so, NATO disbanded the underpaid auxiliary cops a year later, citing the usual concerns over loyalty and corruption. Some of the cops had been caught squeezing cash from local residents in order to supplement their $70-a-month pay. Others were suspected of strong ties to regional warlords. "Paying people to support us when we needed them, despite the positive impact over time, also had the effect of arming people who were not necessarily in line with the [Afghan] government," U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Robert Cone, in 2008 the top training officer in Afghanistan, explained following the auxiliary's disbandment.
The same reservations over loyalty and corruption apparently explain NATO's middling support for the so-called Afghan Public Protection Program that formed local militias in Wardak province, bordering Logar, beginning in 2009. The NATO-managed public protectors are still around, but have failed to stop ethnic violence in Wardak or tamp down on Taliban operations in the province.
By the same token, a militia-style police reserve in southern Afghanistan made one U.S. Army trainer nervous in 2009. "I can’t say they're 100-percent loyal to the Afghan government," Col. James Harris said.
To improve upon the reservists and the Afghan Public Protection Program, last summer incoming NATO war boss Gen. David Petraeus proposed a new "community policing" initiative. "These would be government-formed, government-paid, government-uniformed local police units who would keep any eye out for bad guys -- in their neighborhoods, in their communities," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell explained.
It's not clear yet whether Petraeus' militia plan will produce any actual security gains. One thing is clear: the Afghan Local Police program in Logar is not a product of last year's "community-policing" plan. Instead, it was dreamed up by Maj. Gen. Mustafa, Logar's provincial police chief. Mustafa declared the Wardak militia "a great idea" and devised his own version, according to U.S. Army police adviser Maj. Josh McCully. "He ran with it," McCully says of Mustafa.
To the basic Afghan Public Protection Program template, Mustafa added an important twist: the militia trainees would all be local men nominated by their own elders and deployed only in their hometowns, rather than across a district or province like other militias have been. Under Mustafa's concept, if NATO catches any militiamen extorting civilians or answering to warlords, there will be someone -- namely, the town elders -- for the alliance to hold accountable. But the hope is that keeping cops in their own towns will amp up the peer pressure to behave.
For now, NATO is overseeing Logar's local police, providing three weeks of training plus equipment and pay. In time, the Afghan National Police will take over management of the militia, McCully explained. Whether the new force will last long enough to transition to national control, remains to be seen. Five previous attempts have faltered, but this time could be different, right?
Photo: David Axe
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