SECURITY FORCES

AFGHAN NATIONAL ARMY (ANA)

Introduction:

Afghan National Army (ANA) is the army of Afghanistan that is being trained by the coalition forces to ultimately take the lead in land-based military operations. Since 2001, the United States has provided more than $2 billion worth military equipment and facilities to Afghanistan. Another further $2 billion worth military aid was announced in 2006 and will be delivered in 2007, which will include 2,500 Humvees, tens of thousands of M-16 assault rifles and body armored jackets. It will also include the building of a national military command center. To thwart and dissolve localized militias, the Afghan government has offered cash and vocational training to encourage members to join the ANA.

Training:

 Different members of the Coalition in Afghanistan have undertaken different responsibilities in the creation of the ANA. All these various efforts are managed on the Coalition side by Combined Security Transition Command - Afghanistan (CSTC-A), a two-star level multi-national command headquartered in downtown Kabul. On the ANA side, as of July 2006 all training and education in the Army is managed and implemented by the newly-formed Afghan National Army Training Command (ANATC), a two-star command which reports directly to the Chief of the General Staff. All training centers and military schools are under ANATC HQ.

Individual basic training is conducted primarily by Afghan National Army instructors and staff at ANATC's Kabul Military Training Center, situated on the eastern edge of the capital. The ANA are still supported, however, with various levels of CSTC-A oversight, mentorship, and assistance. The US assists in the basic and advanced training of enlisted recruits, and also runs the Drill Instructor School which produces new training NCOs for the basic training courses. A French Army advisory team oversees the training of officers for staff and platoon or company command in a combined commissioning/infantry officer training unit called the Officer Training Brigade, also located at the Kabul Military Training Center. OTB candidates in the Platoon and Company Command courses are usually older former militia and mujaheddin 'officers' with various levels of military experience. The United Kingdom also conducts initial infantry officer training and commissioning at the Officer Candidate School. While OCS is administratively under OTB's control, it is kept functionally separate. OCS candidates are young men with little or no military experience. The British Army also conduct initial and advanced Non-Commissioned Officer training as well in a separate NCO Training Brigade. The Canadian Forces Land Force Command (the Canadian Army) supervises the Combined Training Exercise portion of initial military training, where trainee soldiers, NCOs, and officers are brought together in field training exercises at the platoon, company and (theoretically) battalion levels to certify them ready for field operations. In the Regional Corps, line ANA battalions have attached Coalition Embedded Training Teams that continue to mentor the battalion's leadership, and advise in the areas of intelligence, communications, fire support, logistics and infantry tactics.

Formal education and professional development is currently conducted at two main ANATC schools, both in Kabul. The National Military Academy of Afghanistan, located near the Kabul International Airport, is a four-year military university, which will produce degreed second lieutenants in a variety of military professions. NMAA's first cadet class entered its second academic year in spring 2006. A contingent of U.S. and Turkish Army military instructors jointly mentor the NMAA faculty and staff. The Command and General Staff College, located in south Kabul, prepares mid-level ANA officers to serve on brigade and corps staffs. France established the CGSC in early 2004, and a cadre of French Army instructors continues to oversee operations at the school. A National DefenceUniversity will also be established at a potential site in northwest Kabul. Eventually all initial officer training (to include the NMAA) as well as the CGSC will be re-located to the new NDU facility.

Force Goals:

The ANA under the Bonn Agreement of 2001 was to have an ultimate strength of 70,000 personnel including the Air Corps. This force goal was to be achieved by year 2006. However various problems like recruitment difficulties and high desertion rates prevented the in time raising of the force. Currently the ANA strength is around 68,000 men. The Air Corps is the weakest link. The average age of the pilot is around 45 years which is a serious handicap. The Air Corps has MI24 Hind and MI11 helicopters coupled with a dozen or so AN 32 transport aircraft. The rotary and fixed wing aircraft are however obsolete and barely air worthy. For combat support the ANA relies on the coalition forces. The ANA is likely to have an ultimate force goal of 150,000 men as this is the minimum strength required to provide security when foreign troops hand over duties to ANA.

Deployment:

The ANA is divided into 5 corps (division sized force). The corps are located at following places:-

201 Corps (Central) Kabul

202 Corps (Eastern) Gardez

203 Corps (Southern) Kandahar

204 Corps (Western) Herat

205 Corps (Northern) Mazar Sharif.

Equipment:

The ANA still relies heavily on the Soviet era equipment including small arm, tanks, infantry vehicles and artillery. However other countries have provided equipment as follows to enhance the combat worthiness of the force.

Problems:

The ANA has not been able to achieve the desired force level and combat worthiness due to the following.

 Desertion: Poor discipline in the force has resulted in large scale desertions which effects its cohesion, training and ability to take the field and conduct operations.

 Weak Leadership: The senior commanders are a product of the Jihadi militias. They do have some battle experience but are intellectually ill equipped to command higher formations of a regular force.

Ethnic Imbalance: Pashtuns constitutes the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan being over fifty percent of the population. However they are under represented in the ANA. In the rank they are hardly twenty five percent and in the officer corps around twenty percent. Reasons are the lack of tradition in the Pashtuns to serve in the armed forces and also the bias of the senior leadership which is mostly Tajik.

Pay Scales and Corruption: The pay scales are dismally low and not an attraction compared to the risks involved. A soldier gets around 80 USD a month which is barely adequate to run a house hold (The Taliban pays double that amount to their recruits). Also corruption prevalent in the force results in pay being not distributed in time or the actual amount due to the men siphoned off by seniors.

Poor Training: In order to complete the force goals, short cuts in training has been the norm. This has resulted in poorly trained soldiers, NCOs and officers holding appointments that they are not capable of. This is the reason that the units cannot undertake independent operations and the have for embedded NATO trainers down to company level.               

Afghan National Police

Introduction:

The Afghan National Police is the primary national police force in Afghanistan. It is under the responsibility of Afghanistan's Ministry of the Interior. The paramilitary police force is under development and being trained by the United States military, other NATO forces and an EU-led mission. The current Afghan National Police force includes more than 70,000 members.

History:

After the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, there was little in the nation resembling a functional police department and private, armed militias of warlords quickly filled the vacuum left behind by a lack of central governance. The Ministry of Interior, under the newly constructed government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, centralized in Kabul, exercised little control over provincial police structures and was unable to effectively secure the remote provinces. Moreover, even before the Taliban, and the civil war and Soviet occupation that preceded them, there had not been a tradition of a strong police structure in Afghanistan. Traditionally, police officers (or soldiers) were poorly paid, recruited or conscripted from the poorest classes of society and frequently held in contempt by the communities they served. Compounding these factors, over two decades of unrest had also resulted in an illiteracy rate conservatively estimated at over 70% for police recruits.

Although early efforts had trained 35,000 officers in basic recruit schools during 2003 and 2004, this training was insufficient to strengthen the structures and senior command levels needed to create an effective police force. Germany, as lead nation for police under the Bonn II Agreement, concentrated its efforts on setting up the Kabul Police Academy and drafted the long range blueprint for restructuring the police services. Except for KunduzProvince which had a Provisional Reconstruction Team (PRT), Germany’s program had only limited reach into the provinces. As the U.S. Department of State International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Bureau’s (INL) activity at this time was limited in resources and scope, the U.S. Departments of Defense and State, in Spring 2005, decided to shift the implementation of the police training and equipment program to the Office of Security Cooperation-Afghanistan (OSC-A), under the authority of the Commanding General, Combined Forces Command (CFC-A). In April 2006 OSC-A became the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A) keeping the OSC-A mission.

The 2005 changes led to an increased impetus to implement significant reform programs, particularly the reform of higher staff levels at the Ministry of the Interior, the placement of police mentors throughout the country, substantial pay increases in the police salary plan and an impending, complete restructuring of the police payroll system. A nationwide reassessment of infrastructure and equipment needs was also undertaken, followed with the distribution of critically needed weapons, ammunition, vehicles, and office/dorm furniture. Although progress has been made in the areas of infrastructure, equipment and payroll distribution, these programs will take some time to reach fruition.

Structure:

The Afghan National Police (ANP) is an organization that falls under the control and responsibility of the Afghan Ministry of Interior, along with the Counter-Narcotics Police of Afghanistan (CNPA) and the Counter Terrorism Department. The ANP is composed of the following sub-agencies:

Afghan Uniform Police

Afghan Border Police

Afghan Highway Police

Afghan Uniform Police (AUP) :The Afghan Uniform Police is the primary civil law enforcement agency in Afghanistan. The ANP is divided into five regional commands (north, south, east, west and central) as well as the Afghan National Civil Order Police, or ANCOP. Other forces falling under the command and control of the ANP include local traffic police departments as well as the fire department.

Afghan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP)

Afghan Border Police (ABP):  The Afghanistan Border Police are responsible for securing the borders of Afghanistan against the illegal entry of persons and the smuggling of contraband. The Border Police specific duties include the following:

Provide border security patrols within a security zone that extends 55km into the territory of Afghanistan.

Provide immigration / visa services and investigate immigration violations.

Establish and maintain Border Crossing Points, to include Airports.

Provide perimeter, building, aircraft and passenger security of international airports.

Afghan Highway Police The highway police are a sub-department of the national police that is currently being dissolved. Their primary responsibility is to provide traffic safety and overall security of the "Ring Road" highway that connects most of the major population centers in Afghanistan. Most of the personnel, equipment and facilities that comprise the highway police are expected to be reorganized under the uniform police.

Facilities:

Kabul Police Academy - established by the German police mission

Central Training Facility in Kabul led by US training

7 Regional Training Centers - training from US forces

Rank Structure:

Rank Disparities

Some ranks are known by several names. These disparities are most-likely caused through different translations from Dari to western languages as well as being interpreted differently by inherently unrelated agencies such as the U.S. military versus the German Police. The role of the "sergeant", or noncommissioned officer, is not well developed and is often overlooked by the prestige associated with being a regular, or commissioned, officer (lieutenant or higher). This lack of emphasis on the subordinate ranks has also stunted the clear definition of ranks as well as their roles and responsibilities.

The ranks of 3rd Lieutenant and Senior Captain are being phased out after the Ministry of Interior underwent a Rank Reform process in which they eliminated a disproportionate amount of senior-ranking officers within the police. These ranks are believed to have served as a way to better distinguish and balance out an extremely top-heavy leadership corp.

Known Alternative Titles

Rank Reform

The original formation of police and security forces saw an overwhelming majority of senior-ranking personnel due to disorganization and corruption. It was not uncommon to find someone holding a senior rank, such as lieutenant colonel, possessing minimal qualifications or having little to no responsibilities for a rank of that stature. It was a period of total mismanagement that allowed people to use bribery and other forms of influence to gain prominent positions in the national police force. It was soon evident that the organization was “top heavy” and thus ineffective in conducting the daily duties expected of the police. Furthermore, many leaders inside the Ministry of Interior were guilty of human rights violations and other forms of blackmail and corruption. There was an obvious need to reorganize and repair this broken ministry.

MOI began a Rank Reform initiative in October 2005 to completely overhaul and replace its existing leadership structure and composition. The United Nations and ISAF forces conducted background checks on all eligible candidates in attempt to thwart the acceptance of MOI leaders with past human rights violations or records of corruption. Concurrent with rank reform, salary reform was also implemented to match their pay with that of their equivalent counterparts in the Afghan National Army who had been receiving higher pay from their inception.

Despite rank and pay reform, it is still very common to see a disproportionate level of senior-ranking officers within the police force. Although these officers have been “reformed” and their rank and pay adjusted to “sergeant”, for example, they will still wear the rank of “captain”, or whatever they feel is appropriate, in an effort to retain more authority. Corruption, bribery and treason are also still very common in the national police.

Equipment:

An ANP instructor demonstrates using an AK-47.

The primary vehicle of the ANP is the four-wheel drive Ford Ranger. Other vehicles include a diesel-powered variant of the U.S. consumer Nissan Frontier, Toyota and SORV pickup trucks from Thailand as well as Yamaha motorcycles donated by Japan. Older vehicles, like the UAZ-469 all-terrain vehicle, were obtained from the Soviet Union.

Weapons

Glock pistols (Australia)

Smith & Wesson Sigma (United States)

M9 pistol (Italy)

AK-47 assault rifles (Soviet Union)

AMD 65 assault rifles (Hungary)

Rocket-propelled grenade systems

Uniforms and body armor remain widely mis-matched and poorly distributed. Most police personnel are issued at least one uniform that is traded out for warmer/cooler uniforms depending on the season. It is common to find a varying array of blue, green and gray uniforms amongst the police due to different manufacturers. Some police have resorted to having their own uniforms custom made. Body armor and helmets are seldom given to individual soldiers and are often given out on an as-needed basis. The composition of this equipment varies between American, Russian and Chinese military grade equipment to 3rd party equipment that provides little-to-no real protection.

Corruption within the ANP:

Widespread corruption in all levels of the ANP has long been a major problem for the combating of the Taliban insurgency. Taliban fighters of both high and low rank have been able to quickly buy their release from police custody with bribes ranging from $100-$10,000. Drug use, defections to the Taliban and sexual harassment of female officers is also widespread within the ANP.