rssAfghan Interior Ministry Defends Auxiliary Security Force
Friday, February 27, 2009 at 11:42 am
- 4 Comments
Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak might have been wary of it, but Interior Minister Mohammed Hanif Atmar gave a forceful defense of the Afghan Public Protection Force — an auxiliary security force that some worry amounts to a remobilization of private militias.
“This is not a militia, not an Arbakai,” Atmar said, referring to a traditional tribal volunteer security force, at a breakfast meeting for the press with the Afghan ministerial delegation that’s in town this week to advise the Obama Af-Pak strategy review. “This is not arming people outside the formal government structure.” Instead, he vowed, the APPF would be “part of the police force, but without the mandate of the police” to perform law enforcement functions, though the APPF would wear police uniforms and guard installations likes schools, roads and public buildings. “This frees assets from the police for community policing,” Atmar said. He also claimed that the APPF would amount to “accelerating” the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of militias. Atmar’s ministry runs the program.
Atmar acknowledged that the upper house of the Afghan parliament has passed a resolution condemning the program — which is proceeding in pilot form in Wardak Province — but urged patience. Some of his countrymen “are behaving against the [counsel] of our famous proverb, ‘Don’t take your boots off before you see the water,’” Atmar said. “Don’t pass resolutions before you see the water. Don’t pass resolutions that will have no relevance whatsoever.”
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4 Comments
Comment posted February 27, 2009 @ 9:48 am
Holy moly. So the purpose of these guys is to perform “community policing,” but they don't have a mandate for law enforcement, but they're meant to be later integrated into the police and Army, but they're all about disarming more militias?
None of that makes any sense. They sound like either dead weight on the police force — little more than security guards with who-knows-what rules of force — and without the normal accountability structures that actually keep informal forces like Arbakai and Lashkars in line with their specific communities' interests.
Each new detail makes the plan sound worse, not better.
Comment posted February 27, 2009 @ 3:42 pm
It's their country, surge them.
Name a sucessful counterinsurgency that did not mobilize indigenous irregulars.
Why tie down Focused Districtly Developed ANP in static guard missions if trustworthy local men can be recruited as a Home Guard?
Comment posted February 27, 2009 @ 5:48 pm
Holy moly. So the purpose of these guys is to perform “community policing,” but they don't have a mandate for law enforcement, but they're meant to be later integrated into the police and Army, but they're all about disarming more militias?
None of that makes any sense. They sound like either dead weight on the police force — little more than security guards with who-knows-what rules of force — and without the normal accountability structures that actually keep informal forces like Arbakai and Lashkars in line with their specific communities' interests.
Each new detail makes the plan sound worse, not better.
Comment posted February 27, 2009 @ 11:42 pm
It's their country, surge them.
Name a sucessful counterinsurgency that did not mobilize indigenous irregulars.
Why tie down Focused Districtly Developed ANP in static guard missions if trustworthy local men can be recruited as a Home Guard?
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