Have government-backed initiatives supporting informal armed groups improved security in Afghanistan? This report analyses the Afghanistan National Auxiliary Police (ANAP), the Afghan Public Protection Programme (AP3), and the Local Defence Initiative (LDI). These entail support to informal armed groups to provide security, particularly in areas where the Taleban is gaining ground. However, lessons from the earlier ANAP programme were not learned, and AP3 and LDI have reproduced its shortcomings.
The aim of the Afghanistan National Auxiliary Police, launched by the government with international support in 2006, was to provide a ‘community policing’ function. The ANAP force was locally recruited and trained, and was concentrated in the south and southeast of Afghanistan. Contrary to its intent, the programme was used to regularise existing militias, many of whom were ill-suited to community policing. The ANAP faced problems of inadequate logistical support, inadequate vetting, unclear command-and-control, and issues of loyalty. It was shut down in 2008. However, lessons were not learnt, and problems have been reproduced in the later AP3 and the LDI programmes.
- It has been difficult not to ‘pick sides’ when working with local groups.
- The programmes lack proper accountability and risk rewarding criminal commanders rather than peaceful members of the community.
- Government-backed armed groups emerge as rivals rather than partners to the ANSF. There are indications that AP3 and LDI are deterring people from joining the army and police.
- There is a growing sense of alienation from those who feel they do not benefit from the programmes, especially non-Pashtuns.
- Adding reintegration components into LDI makes programmes more difficult to manage, introducing fear and distrust that is not conducive to strengthening communities.
- Where informal groups have been more successful, there has been close collaboration with well-trained and well-informed international military staff. It is unlikely that a sufficient level and quality of involvement by the international military can be replicated on a larger scale or that the relative success will survive a scaling down of international involvement.
Programmes based on supporting local armed groups are fraught with risk. The ANAP was a costly and destabilising failure. There needs to be a comprehensive assessment of the ANAP in order to learn from it. Without such learning, little progress can be expected from one programme to the next. In addition:
- A unified approach to LDIs over reintegration is needed. While the international military see experiments with local defence as a tool of unconventional warfare and part of a ‘fight-to-win’ strategy, the government of Afghanistan sees them as a way of rewarding areas of good governance.
- ANAP, AP3 and LDI all centred on the Pashtun-dominated south and southeast. It is thus essential to deal with the negative but exaggerated perception that non-Pashtun’s have been left out.
- Sustaining necessary levels of international military support to initiatives over wider geographic areas may not be feasible or affordable.
- Support to groups in Wardak and Nilli, and LDI initiatives in the Alikozai belt have a high risk of upsetting local balances of power, with unpredictable local and national consequences.
