[R-G] US plan to arm militias scares some in Afghanistan

[Anthony Fenton]

US plan to arm militias scares some in Afghanistan

By KATHY GANNON – 9 hours ago

MAIDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan (AP) — A U.S.-backed plan to create militias  
and give them guns to fight the Taliban is drawing criticism from  
local authorities in areas where the first units are being rolled out,  
raising questions as to whether the effort can succeed in Afghanistan.

The militias have been compared to the U.S.-fostered Awakening  
Councils in Iraq, which have often been credited with reducing  
violence there, and are similar to neighboring Pakistan's tribal  
armies which also have been touted as a success.

On Saturday, Afghanistan's interior minister announced the program had  
begun, and that the United States would be paying for all aspects,  
including buying Kalashnikov automatic rifles for members of the  
Afghan Public Protection Force.

One skeptical Afghan official said only criminals would join because  
most citizens wouldn't want to face the Taliban in combat. And critics  
question the wisdom of handing out weapons to Afghans when the  
government and U.N. have been trying to reduce the number of arms in  
the country. They fear the plan could stoke rivalries between ethnic  
groups with a bloody past.

"One of the causes of violence in Afghanistan is because most people  
do not give up their weapons. Now you want to again give weapons to  
the villages?" said Mohammed Hussain Fahimi, the deputy of the  
provincial council in Wardak, where officials say the units will be  
first deployed. "We never learn our lessons."

Wardak lies southwest of the capital of Kabul and is increasingly  
falling under Taliban control, illustrating the growing influence of  
the Islamic insurgents in the years since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Fahimi was one of several government officials and residents  
interviewed in Wardak by The Associated Press last week, all of whom  
expressed skepticism about the plan.

President Barack Obama has said stabilizing Afghanistan will be a U.S.  
priority and plans to nearly double the number of American troops from  
the roughly 34,000 in the country today.

He has not commented on the militia plan, but it has been endorsed by  
Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command and the former  
top commander in Iraq whose outreach to Sunni sheiks helped oust  
militants from key areas and sharply decreased attacks.

Officials say the force will be guarding highways, schools, clinics  
and other government institutions. It is still not clear how large and  
widespread the militias will be.

Col. Greg Julian, the U.S. military's spokesman in Afghanistan, said  
the United States will mentor, train and give back-up to the new  
village forces, but Afghanistan's interior ministry is in charge of  
the program.

While Iraq's Awakening Councils are made up along tribal lines,  
officials say the militias in Afghanistan are to be drawn up by the  
local councils who are being told to make their choices based on  
character, not tribal affiliations.

Yet few Afghans believed tribal loyalties can be avoided, with many  
fearful the new force would fall under the control of local warlords  
who could even join with the Taliban.

Another council member, Mohammed Mukhlis, predicted only thieves and  
criminals would join the force, mostly because no one would risk being  
killed by the Taliban to defend the discredited government.

"For the last seven years, the government didn't do anything for the  
nation, so people in the districts don't trust them," he said.

Mukhlis's home of Saydabad will be one of the first areas to get the  
militias he opposes. Overrun by Taliban, Mukhlis can no longer go to  
his home and has moved to a walled compound closer to Kabul.

"Right now I am safe here, but I don't know if in another few months I  
will have to move again, even closer to Kabul, to escape Taliban," he  
said.

Wrangling by Afghanistan's various non-Pashtun ethnic groups has also  
marred the establishment of the village militias, officials said.

The tribes in Afghanistan's east and south — where the militias will  
be needed the most — are almost exclusively Pashtun, the majority  
ethnic group in Afghanistan.

Non-Pashtuns balk at arming ethnic Pashtuns while disarming the rest  
of the country.

Saleh Mohammed Registani, an ethnic Tajik member of parliament, warned  
that a newly armed Pashtun militia would create deeper fissures  
between Afghanistan's Pashtun and non-Pashtun people, who are  
struggling to heal from decades of retaliatory attacks and  
discrimination.

"If this goes ahead, the south will become a no-go place for non- 
Pashtuns and it will encourage other people to find weapons to defend  
themselves," Registani said. "As a non-Pashtun, if I know someone has  
weapons, I won't go there. These militias will eventually come  
together with Taliban because they are all Pashtuns and they will not  
fight against each other."

History also suggests the militias may not work.

In the 1980s, the communist government of President Najibullah,  
besieged by U.S.-backed mujahedeen fighters, put the job of securing  
villages in the hands of village militias. That backfired because  
villagers, frustrated by the heavy-handedness of the militias, turned  
to the mujahedeen for security.

The United Nations has been struggling since the collapse of the  
Taliban to disarm Afghanistan's myriad militias, many of the gunmen  
loyal to warlords. The U.N. has spent millions of dollars on its  
Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration program, which was  
launched within months of the Taliban's ouster — although some say it  
really got going two years late.

The plan included collecting weapons and integrating warlords' private  
militias into army and police units. But while thousands of pieces of  
weaponry have been handed in, much of it is said to be antiquated.  
Many warlords, meanwhile, have retained their militias.

"When you give everyone weapons, everyone will think they are king,"  
said Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, who was the Taliban's ambassador to  
Pakistan before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "It's not just a mistake,  
it is stupid."

Joanna Nathan, an Afghan analyst with the Brussels-based International  
Crisis Group, called the militias a "quick fix" to a deteriorating  
security situation by both the international forces and the government  
of President Hamid Karzai.

A similar project in 2006 armed thousands of "auxiliary police." It  
was soon disbanded, Nathan said, with a third joining the police and  
the rest disappearing — along with their weapons.

"It's a constant cycle of quick fixes," she said.

Part the problem is the regular turnover of international officials  
who want to show some improvement during their watch and offer up new  
proposals.

"Every few years, another set of foreigners come in and they all need  
to demonstrate real change in their time."

Nathan said money and training should be invested in Afghanistan's  
police as the "absolute priority at the district level."

She also said there should be an effort at "really cleaning up the  
Interior Ministry."

"We are going to have to grit our teeth and focus on the long term,"  
Nathan added. "There are no quick solutions."