KABUL - After losing hundreds of fighters
in direct confrontations with North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) forces last summer, the
Taliban are increasingly using suicide and
hit-and-run tactics in what appears to be a broad
campaign against a beleaguered Afghan police force
that is yielding record casualties this year.
Insurgents used a remote control last
Thursday to detonate a roadside bomb next to a
convoy carrying the police chief of
Helmand province, killing
three civilians and wounding 13 others. While
attacks against police occur every few days in the
restive south and east, they are not confined to
remote districts where support from the Afghan
army and NATO forces is wanting.
Just last
month, the Taliban claimed responsibility for a
massive bombing that killed at least 35 people
outside Kabul police headquarters. The majority
were young academy trainees who would have
graduated to assume the most dangerous, least paid
jobs in the country - had they lived.
"These men know they are risking their
lives, but they want more than anything to defend
Afghanistan," said Major-General Said Zal, a
senior officer at the Kabul Police Academy. "We
love our country and are working without salary
sometimes."
In some provincial districts
with more than 100,000 people, there are just
25-30 police stretched thin, battling insurgents
and lending a hand in drug eradication, all of
which makes them soft targets, according to
Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary. For
their efforts, they are paid about US$70 a month.
Analysts say the Taliban sent a twofold
message by attacking the Kabul police
headquarters: no amount of international support
can ensure security; and those who cooperate with
the government are targets, borne out by hundreds
of police deaths so far this year. Some attacks
have even killed a handful of relatives of police
officials, including a family of five in Ghazni
province.
Making matters worse, police
often find it difficult to defend themselves when
targeted for assassination. Insurgents strike with
mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, yet
security officers are limited to used AK-47
assault rifles and other dated weaponry; bullets
may amount to no more than a handful. US
Major-General Robert Durbin, a senior army officer
and former head of the Combined Security
Transition Command tasked with training the Afghan
army and police, has noted that only about 40% of
the police force is properly equipped.
Hekmat Karzai, head of Kabul's Center for
Conflict and Peace Studies, said: "Strategically,
it makes sense to attack Afghan security forces
where morally it gives people a complex about
whether it is worth joining."
In Kandahar
city, the arid former Taliban capital, Colonel
Mohammad Hussein says security is deteriorating
because few want to step into the line of fire for
next to nothing. He recounted the story of one
policeman based in Arghandab district - without a
gun - who was shot at a checkpoint and cannot go
back to his pro-Taliban village and support his
family of 12 since he has become a "marked man".
"Police working in remote places are in
trouble. The ones here cannot feed their family or
help themselves either," Hussein said. "A bag of
flour costs nearly [$35]. How can we solve any
problem with this?"
One ranking officer
based in Kandahar who requested anonymity noted
that the paltry $70 monthly wage his men are
supposed to make is often $10 less once it passes
through the state bureaucracy. Officials within
the Interior Ministry, known to be rife with
corruption at the highest levels, have even
encouraged him to lie about starting salaries and
imminent wage increases as a ploy to convince
skeptical would-be recruits, he alleged.
A
joint report by the US Defense and State
departments estimates it would cost $600 million a
year for years to come to bring the police force
up to par, provided such funding is not siphoned
off by corruption. Indeed, some police have not
been paid in more than a year, prompting them to
extort money from opium-poppy farmers who have
produced another record harvest this year, and
destroy crops of those who don't pay them bribes.
"Often little more than private militias,
[the police] are regarded in nearly every district
more as a source of insecurity than protection,"
said a recent report by the International Crisis
Group, a Brussels-based think-tank. "Instead of
gaining the confidence of communities, their
often-predatory behavior alienates locals
further."
To compensate, certain provinces
have seen the formation of traditional tribal
policing systems. The Ghazni provincial police
chief, for example, has said he could summon at
least 500 militia to combat insurgents if needed,
with similar claims from officials in other
troubled provinces.
At last,
reinforcements may be on their way. The US
Congress has approved a multibillion-dollar
security package, a portion of which Afghan
officials expect to be earmarked to boost the
police. For its part, the European Union has just
taken over police-training duties from Germany and
has sent advisers to restive provinces, where they
are expected to work with local governments to
attract and train new men and women. The plan is
to add 20,000 more police to the current level of
about 62,000 officers over the next couple of
years, spokesman Bashary said.
The Afghan
government is also putting together a 5,000-man
reserve force based in central provinces to
provide "quick-response support wherever police
are attacked", he said. "They will go in and pound
the enemy, and then withdraw." Another program
aims to hire 11,200 auxiliary officers to
supplement forces in high-risk security areas,
notably the southern provinces of Kandahar and
Helmand where the Taliban have their strongest
presence.
But critics argue that the
10-day crash course for these officers will
undermine the overall strength and integrity of
the national police, increasing the likelihood of
graft and infiltration by criminal elements. Some
US trainers have said that one in 10 new Afghan
recruits has links to the Taliban.
"While
it has been emphasized that the [auxiliary police]
would be recruited individually, many fear the
result will be the regularization of militias,"
the Crisis Group warned.
Jason
Motlagh has reported freelance from Saharan
Africa, Asia and the Caribbean for various US and
European news media.
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