New threat seen in Afghan pullout

Puzeh, Feb 5: Afghan rural areas will be at greater risk of falling to the Taliban if the U.S. accedes to Kabul's demands to speed up the withdrawal of special-operations teams working with Afghan village self-defense units, an internal report prepared for the U.S. military warned.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, during talks with President Barack Obama in Washington this month, secured an agreement on withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghan villages this spring, months ahead of previous schedules. Afghan officials indicated they believe this commitment includes the special-operations teams working with village forces known as the Afghan Local Police. Coalition officials said the matter is under discussion.

The ALP have been built and trained by coalition special-operations units in rural areas that are usually beyond the reach of the Afghan army and regular police. Around 19,000 local police have been deployed since the program began in 2010.

The report, written by a research firm with ties to the Pentagon, warned that the ALP program is in danger of collapse—and that local leaders may be more vulnerable to assassination and intimidation—in case of a too-rapid U.S. pullout, according to excerpts viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

That conclusion echoes longstanding concerns aired by military commanders who prefer that a withdrawal be built around conditions on the ground, rather than deadlines.

"A lot of locals have put their necks out against the Taliban," said Seth Jones, associate director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corp., who said he wasn't aware of the report but had spoken to Afghan officials about the issue. "If you pull [special-operations forces] outthe villagers are going to be the ones that pay the price."

Afghan and coalition officials are discussing how to adjust its timeline, said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Tom Bryant, a spokesman for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Special Operations Component Command-Afghanistan, which is responsible for the ALP program.

"There obviously are consequencesif a precipitous departure from all villages is directed," he said. "Our headquarters is working to further define those [consequences] and develop mitigating strategies as a contingency."

Sediq Sediqqi, the spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, which oversees ALP, declined to comment on the negotiations.

The U.S. military has long billed the ALP, a project that was implemented over Mr. Karzai's objections, as the centerpiece of its counterinsurgency campaign. At present, around 17% of Afghanistan's population—roughly 5 million people—are protected by ALP units, according to the Special Operations Command.

The ALP program is controversial: Officials in Kabul and human-rights advocates worry it could pave the way for the return of lawless militias once international forces go home. Some ALP members have been involved in extortion, murder and rape, according to the watchdog Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

"This is not a perfect program, by any stretch of the imagination," said U.S. Army Col. Don Bolduc, deputy commanding general for NATO Special Operations Component Command-Afghanistan. But, he added, "the misconduct is extremely low in comparison to the numbers that are out there."

Col. Bolduc said ALP members have been held accountable for misconduct, including a high-profile case in which four local police officers received lengthy convictions for sexual assault. The program, he said, provides better government oversight than unregulated militias.

The military-commissioned report reflects a major concern of U.S. special operations advisers: whether the ALP experiment in rural policing will survive, particularly in Afghan communities that have only a tenuous link to the central government.

One of those communities is Puzeh, an outpost in southern Helmand province, Afghanistan's prime opium-growing country and the Taliban's historic heartland. Two years ago, the Taliban "had complete freedom of movement here," said a Marine special-operations team sergeant working with the ALP in Puzeh. A year ago, the Marines and Afghan police fought raging gunbattles to reclaim the area.

Today, the U.S. advisers stroll outside their mud-brick compound without body armor. ALP members patrol in pickup trucks and on motorbikes and man checkpoints along Highway 611, the main road in the district.

On a recent day, a special-operations team leader, wearing traditional Afghan dress, stopped to visit a mosque under construction. Then, following a chat with an ALP patrol, he went for a spin on the village's unpaved road on a borrowed Afghan bicycle.

Military officials describe the ALP program as a tenuous experiment that depends on the effectiveness of the Afghan government, where corruption has helped drive support for the insurgency; in some areas, the Taliban have been able to offer dispute resolution and other services as an alternative to corrupt and ineffectual local bodies.

"We can help them all day long, but if they don't have confidence in their district government, then it's all for naught," said a Marine special operations company commander in Puzeh.

In another village outpost in Helmand, a U.S. Navy SEAL team leader described his worry that ALP units could collapse without serious backing from the Afghan state.

The most optimistic outcome, he said, is that ALP and the villagers "will have enough of a connection to government, they'll prefer the government to the Taliban."

But, the SEAL team leader reckoned, the locals "will probably make some sort of small deals with [the Taliban], and make sort of a peace treaty" once the Americans leave.

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