Showing posts with label trust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trust. Show all posts

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Afghan armed forces trustable?

the security in some cities were handed over to afghan security forces and it is to be completed until 2014. i was just wondering how capable they are of fulfilling their duty and whether we could trust them.

  1. April 27 - an Afghan pilot had an argument with his american mentors, left the meeting and then returned and forced 9 Americans to remove their weapons before shooting them with a U.S. provided M9 semi-automatic weapon. he then shot himself.
  2. 25 April - Taliban jailbreak from the Sarposa prison of kandahar, something out of a bad gangster movie. some 500 Taliban got away including prominent commanders and they police and afghan official said to be involved in facilitating it
  3. April 18 - An insurgent kills two Afghan soldiers and an officer at the Afghan Defense Ministry.
  4. April 16 - Six American troops, four Afghan soldiers and an interpreter are killed when an Afghan soldier detonates an explosive vest at Forward Operating Base Gamberi in Laghman.
  5. April 15 - A suicide bomber impersonating a policeman blows himself up inside the Kandahar police headquarters complex, killing the top law enforcement official in the southern province.
  6. April 4 - Two American military personnel are shot and killed by a man wearing an Afghan border police uniform.
  7. February - An Afghan solider shoots nine German soldiers, killing three and injuring six.
  8. January - One Italian soldier is killed and another is wounded after an Afghan soldier opens fire on them.

the afghan national security forces (ANSF) has been growing in numbers but continues to be greatly lacking in quality. Still plagued by widespread corruption, it continues to be deeply resented by the population for its abusiveness. It is still trained mainly as a light paramilitary force to hold off insurgents until the ISAF can arrive on the scene and has little ability to deal with ordinary crime, the daily scourge for Afghans. The lack of order on the street creates important inroads for the Taliban.

The stampede to create militia forces in Afghanistan further complicates the reliability of Afghan security forces. The local police set up by ISAF may have robust vetting and safeguard mechanisms, but the myriad of other militias created by ethnic politicians and local strongmen often don’t have any vetting at all. Their growth reveals the level of ethnic tensions and uncertainty in Afghanistan. Nor does the Ministry of Interior have any clear ability to control any such forces that go rogue.

Karzai, distrustful of and confused by Washington, operates an increasingly narrow patronage network and easily overrides the local officials whom he perceives as threatening, regardless of their performance. Many Afghans, not the least of whom are the Northerners and minorities, are deeply worried about negotiations with the Taliban. Even with quarter of a million Afghan security forces and 160 billion dollars spent in the last ten years, the current political situation in Afghanistan is unstable.