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07-15-2010, 11:45 AM
Karzai says he will back locally based forces
By Sean D. Naylor - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jul 15, 2010 8:11:58 EDT
After months of deliberation, Afghan President Hamid Karzai gave his approval Wednesday to a U.S. special operations plan to establish locally recruited village protection forces across rural Afghanistan, on the condition that they be named the Local Police Force and fall under the Afghan Interior Ministry’s “authority and direct control.”
The protection forces are part of U.S. special operations forces’ village stability program, which embeds special ops teams in carefully selected villages, with the aim of bringing both development and security to the communities, and then connecting them to Afghan government. The program is one of the special operations forces’ highest priorities, but because it often involves establishing local protection forces to provide the villages a first line of defense, it had met with a cautious response from the Karzai government, which was leery of the creation of any security force that fell outside its direct control.
Senior U.S. officials, including recently appointed International Security Assistance Force commander Army Gen. David Petraeus, had been working hard for several weeks to assuage Karzai’s concerns.
“Since General Petraeus took command on the 4th [of July], he met with the president some nine or 10 times, and on each occasion this was discussed,” said a U.S. military spokesman. “As a result, now ISAF has a better understanding of the way the Afghans want to go with the program.”
Karzai’s office announced the Afghan president’s decision following a meeting of his national security council attended by Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry.
Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan, which includes most U.S. special operations forces in Afghanistan that do not belong to the secretive Joint Special Operations Command task force, is already conducting village stability operations at 13 locations, the U.S. military spokesman said. Now that Karzai has signed off on the program, the special operators plan to add another 12 sites, he said.
Wednesday’s announcement implies that the local protection forces already in existence will gradually be rebranded as the Local Police Force. “It was also agreed [at the meeting] that for the purpose of the rule of law, all armed groups outside the Interior Ministry be gradually disbanded and then be reintegrated into the Local Police Force as and where necessary,” said the press release from Karzai’s office.
“They want improved policing, both in quality and in quantity, and they want them vetted and biometrically identified … and paid, trained and hired under the [Interior Ministry],” the U.S. military spokesman said. “In these conversations [with U.S. officials] they worked hard to make it a controlled security element.”
Some of the delay before Karzai announced his support of the program was due to the Afghan president performing “due diligence” on village stability operations and everything they entailed, the U.S. military spokesman said. “The president got into details of the program, understands them and now feels good about them, and we expect that what they announce with regard to details will look a lot like what we’ve been doing.”
However, Karzai’s announcement did spring one surprise on U.S. officials, who had bandied around the names “Afghan Public Protection Force” and “Afghan Public Protection Police” for the locally recruited “community watch” organizations. “LPF [Local Police Force] was new,” the U.S. military spokesman said.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/07/military_afghanistan_karzai_stability_071410w/
By Sean D. Naylor - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jul 15, 2010 8:11:58 EDT
After months of deliberation, Afghan President Hamid Karzai gave his approval Wednesday to a U.S. special operations plan to establish locally recruited village protection forces across rural Afghanistan, on the condition that they be named the Local Police Force and fall under the Afghan Interior Ministry’s “authority and direct control.”
The protection forces are part of U.S. special operations forces’ village stability program, which embeds special ops teams in carefully selected villages, with the aim of bringing both development and security to the communities, and then connecting them to Afghan government. The program is one of the special operations forces’ highest priorities, but because it often involves establishing local protection forces to provide the villages a first line of defense, it had met with a cautious response from the Karzai government, which was leery of the creation of any security force that fell outside its direct control.
Senior U.S. officials, including recently appointed International Security Assistance Force commander Army Gen. David Petraeus, had been working hard for several weeks to assuage Karzai’s concerns.
“Since General Petraeus took command on the 4th [of July], he met with the president some nine or 10 times, and on each occasion this was discussed,” said a U.S. military spokesman. “As a result, now ISAF has a better understanding of the way the Afghans want to go with the program.”
Karzai’s office announced the Afghan president’s decision following a meeting of his national security council attended by Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry.
Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan, which includes most U.S. special operations forces in Afghanistan that do not belong to the secretive Joint Special Operations Command task force, is already conducting village stability operations at 13 locations, the U.S. military spokesman said. Now that Karzai has signed off on the program, the special operators plan to add another 12 sites, he said.
Wednesday’s announcement implies that the local protection forces already in existence will gradually be rebranded as the Local Police Force. “It was also agreed [at the meeting] that for the purpose of the rule of law, all armed groups outside the Interior Ministry be gradually disbanded and then be reintegrated into the Local Police Force as and where necessary,” said the press release from Karzai’s office.
“They want improved policing, both in quality and in quantity, and they want them vetted and biometrically identified … and paid, trained and hired under the [Interior Ministry],” the U.S. military spokesman said. “In these conversations [with U.S. officials] they worked hard to make it a controlled security element.”
Some of the delay before Karzai announced his support of the program was due to the Afghan president performing “due diligence” on village stability operations and everything they entailed, the U.S. military spokesman said. “The president got into details of the program, understands them and now feels good about them, and we expect that what they announce with regard to details will look a lot like what we’ve been doing.”
However, Karzai’s announcement did spring one surprise on U.S. officials, who had bandied around the names “Afghan Public Protection Force” and “Afghan Public Protection Police” for the locally recruited “community watch” organizations. “LPF [Local Police Force] was new,” the U.S. military spokesman said.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/07/military_afghanistan_karzai_stability_071410w/