Report Finds over 250,000 Displaced in Last Two Years, Criticizes Local Police Programs
28 June 2011
Afghan civilians are caught in the middle of an intensifying military campaign against a fractured armed insurgency. Despite the U.S. military’s claims of progress, insurgent attacks are up by 50% over last year, and more than 250,000 people have fled their villages in the past two years. U.S. funded and trained militias are only exacerbating this explosive situation. As the U.S. begins to draw down its forces and transition responsibilities...
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Taliban Kill Eight in Attack on Police Checkpoint in Ghazni
22 June 2011
Eight Afghan police were killed Wednesday when Taliban attacked their checkpoint in a brazen assault likely to raise fresh security questions as the United States prepares a troop drawdown. The attack in Ghazni province's Qarabagh district, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) southwest of Kabul, is thought to have been an inside job in which insurgents worked with a policeman at the checkpoint to strike. "The attack started at around 7:00 am (2:30 GMT),"...
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Afghanistan NGO Safety Office Bi-Weekly Security Report
21 June 2011
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While May concluded with the reporting of extraordinary levels of conflict related activity (surpassing the previous peak recorded in August 2010), the opening period for June indicates a continuation of this momentum, reporting similarly high levels of incidents (see p. 7). This periods figures also reveal that despite security force efforts at interdiction and disruption of AOG networks (both manpower and supply related) through the winter and...
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US-funded Afghan Local Police under Scrutiny after Claims of Abuses, Infighting
20 June 2011
A cornerstone US policy to turn Afghan farmers into armed watchmen to keep out the Taliban has hit controversy and been scaled back over allegations of infighting and illegal taxation. In Marjah, the 1,150 trained local police or "arbaki" patrol an area transformed from insurgent hotbed into a mostly peaceful farming district in southern Afghanistan since a military operation 15 months ago. [...] But President Hamid Karzai has expressed concern that...
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Uniformed Suicide Bombers Attack Kabul Police Station, Kill Nine
20 June 2011
Suicide bombers in army uniform attacked a Kabul police compound on Saturday, killing nine people in the second major assault inside the Afghan capital in less than a month, the Interior Ministry said. The Taliban, which claimed responsibility for the assault, vowed last month to carry out attacks on foreign and Afghan troops and government officials, and have assassinated several senior police commanders since the start of the year. Three policemen,...
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Training of ANSF Won't Be Complete until 2016/2017, Units "Still Too Dependent on Coalition": ISAF
13 June 2011
Not a single Afghan police or army unit is capable of maintaining law and order in the war-torn country without the support of coalition forces, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. Almost a decade after international troops were sent in to overthrow the Taliban and help to establish a functioning democracy in Afghanistan, a combination of poor training, lack of numbers, corruption and illiteracy has left the country unable to protect its own people....
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Suicide Bomber Hits Memorial for Slain Police Commander, Kills Four Officers
10 June 2011
A suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a memorial service for the assassinated police chief of north Afghanistan Friday, killing at least four policemen, local security and health officials said. The attack appeared to target the police chief of Kunduz province, Sameullah Qatra, whose predecessor in the post was killed by a suicide bomber in March. Qatra was near the bomber but escaped unhurt, his spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini said. A string...
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Women Brave Social Barriers to Join Afghan Police Force
09 June 2011
A mother of three, Maryam is one of the women who make up less than one percent of Afghanistan's National Police. They wear knee-length olive green skirts over thick trousers with navy hijabs. "I am serving my country, which needs kind, honourable and honest women who are able to solve specifically women's problems. We need policewomen as well as men," Maryam, who only gave her first name, told Reuters. [...] The 22-year-old's eyes light up when...
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Govt Curbs Recruitment of Children into Police but Minors Still at Risk of Abuse
07 June 2011
Afghanistan is making progress weeding out children from its police forces but is only starting to tackle persistent allegations of sexual abuse and may still have minors serving informally, UN officials said on Tuesday. Peter Wittig, Germany's ambassador to the United Nations and head of a mission to Afghanistan looking at protection of children in war, also said that UN sanctions might be considered as a measure of last resort against insurgent...
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Summary of Recent Security Incidents
06 June 2011
Insurgents attacked an Afghan checkpoint overnight, killing two police officers and abducting five others in the southwest of the country, officials said on Monday. The attack happened in Nimroz province late Sunday and appears to be linked to rogue police officers involved with the Taliban, officials said. "Armed insurgents attacked a police post in Khash Rod district at 11:00 pm killing two policemen, wounding one, and kidnapping five others,"...
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