First Afghan community policing force graduates

[David]

AP


KABUL – The first group of Afghans have completed training for a U.S.-backed community policing force that some warn will arm local militias, but the government has touted as vital to confronting an increasingly virulent insurgency.

In a sign of the rising violence, clashes in southern Afghanistan killed 18 militants, U.S. forces said Friday.

The deteriorating situation in Afghanistan has prompted President Barack Obama to pledge to send 17,000 additional troops to the country this year.

Obama also plans to send 4,000 more trainers to advise the Afghan army as part of a new U.S. strategy for the conflict to be announced Friday, officials said.

In an effort to augment desperately needed security forces, the first members of an experimental "public protection force" completed their training Thursday in eastern Wardak province.

The program has been compared to the U.S.-fostered Awakening Councils in Iraq, which have often been credited with reducing violence there.

The Afghan government created the program to test community policing as a way to strengthen local security while the army and police are being built up. But some have criticized the plan as dangerous because it might arm local militias who could be difficult to control.

More than 240 people graduated from the three-week training course in a ceremony attended by the top U.S. commander in the country, Gen. David McKiernan, and high-ranking Afghan officials, the U.S. military said in a statement. U.S. forces are providing logistical funding for the pilot program, along with mentors for trainers and help with community projects, it said.

The recruits were chosen by community leaders, who have also agreed to monitor their actions. They have all undergone background checks.

"The name is clear: protection. Anyone who calls them a militia is wrong," said Wardak's provincial police chief, Abdul Yamen Muzafaruddin. "They are working within the police structure and under the command of police."

"We have a very strong guarantee from village elders," Muzafaruddin added. He said the new recruits will receive their weapons in the next few days and then deploy throughout the province.

The fears related to the force are understandable in a country that has many independent militias, some first armed by the U.S. in its effort to oust the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

The United Nations has struggled since the collapse of the Taliban to disarm such groups. The costly U.N. disarmament program has included collecting weapons and integrating warlords' private fighters into army and police units. Thousands of weapons have been handed in, but many are said to be antiquated. Many warlords, meanwhile, have retained their militias.

In 2006, a similar project to form a public protection force armed thousands of "auxiliary police." It was disbanded after a short time, and some of its members joined the police.

Meanwhile, three clashes Thursday left 18 militants dead, U.S. forces said.

Troops killed 11 militants and captured another Thursday night during a raid targeting a key Taliban insurgent in a village in southern Helmand province, the U.S. military said in a statement. An insurgent targeted in the attack in Lashkar Gar district, west of the provincial capital of Kandahar, was involved in making bombs that were used for roadside attacks in northern Helmand, it said.

The forces came under fire from militants inside a compound as they advanced and returned fire. One militant tried to use women and children in the compound as human shields, but the force managed to shoot him without harming the civilians, the statement said.

A village elder told coalition forces the Taliban forced them to shelter the group for the night, it said.

In the same province Thursday, police killed five militants and wounded six others during an operation that also captured three fighters, the Interior Ministry said.

One of the killed militants was responsible for the death of an anti-Taliban lawmaker in the province last week, the ministry said in a statement. The lawmaker, Dad Mohammad Khan, and four others were killed by a roadside bomb on March 19.

In neighboring Oruzgan province, Afghan and international forces killed two militants and destroyed a bomb in an air strike, the military said. A patrol spotted the militants planting the bomb on a heavily traveled road and called in the strike, it said.

There are roughly 65,000 international forces in Afghanistan and more than half are Americans.

All of the new military trainers, plus the additional combat forces Obama has already approved, are to be in Afghanistan by the fall.