PEACEW RKS

COUNTERINSURGENCY, LOCAL MILITIAS, 

AND STATEBUILDING IN AFGHANISTAN

Jonathan Goodhand 

and Aziz Hakimi

[ [
Cover photo: Afghan Local Police candidates, 

Daykundi Province, by Petty Officer 2nd Class 

David Brandenburg, supplied by DVIDS

The views expressed in this report are those of 

the authors alone. They do not necessarily reflect 

the views of the United States Institute of Peace.

United States Institute of Peace

2301 Constitution Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20037

Phone: 202.457.1700

Fax: 202.429.6063

E-mail: usip_requests@usip.org

Web: www.usip.org

Peaceworks No. 90. First published 2014.

ISBN: 978-1-60127-206-5

© 2014 by the United States Institute of Peace

About the Report

Much international effort and funding have focused on 

building and bureaucratizing the means of violence in 

Afghanistan. At the same time, parallel government and 

NATO experiments have armed local defense forces, 

including local militias, under the Afghan Local Police 

(ALP) program to fight the insurgency and provide 

security at the local level. This report—which is based on 

a year’s research in Kabul and the provinces of Wardak, 

Baghlan, and Kunduz—seeks to understand the role and 

impact of the ALP on security and political dynamics 

in the context of ongoing counterinsurgency and 

stabilization operations and the projected drawdown of 

international troops in 2014 . 

About the Authors

Jonathan Goodhand is a professor of conflict and 

development studies in the Development Studies 

department at the School of Oriental and African 

Studies (SOAS) at the University of London. His research 

interests include the political economy of aid, conflict, 

and postwar reconstruction, with a particular focus 

on Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. Aziz Hakimi is a PhD 

candidate at SOAS. His dissertation focuses on the ALP 

in relation to Afghan statebuilding. 
Peaceworks • January 2014 • no. 90

CONTENTS

Introduction ... 5

Background ... 5

Shifting Security and Policing Environment ... 6

Emergence of the ALP ... 7

Antecedents ... 9

Emergence ... 11

Rationalities and Incentives ... 15

ALP in the Provinces ... 17

Wardak ... 17

Baghlan ... 25

Kunduz ... 32

Findings and Analysis ... 37

Explaining Different Outcomes ... 38

Impacts on Security ... 38

Impacts on Statebuilding and Governance ... 41

Implications ... 43

Recommendations ... 44

[The greatest threat to stability in Afghanistan is less the 

existence of a few hundred militias per district in the form of 

the ALP and more the danger that after 2014 an oversized 

and unevenly trained armed force will decompose and 

fragment into myriad competing militia groups.]

Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan

USIP.ORG 3

Summary

■ International intervention in Afghanistan at the end of 2001 marked less the beginning of 

a war-to-peace transition and more a new phase of an ongoing conflict.

■ The fundamental contradiction has been attempting to build peace while fighting a war. 

■ Post-2001 Afghanistan exemplifies the deleterious effects of exogenous, militarized 

statebuilding, which has undermined peacebuilding and statebuilding at many levels. 

■ The paradox of counterinsurgency doctrine in Afghanistan is that its success depends on 

a high-capacity regime to put it into practice but that exogenous statebuilding prevents the 

emergence of such a regime in the first place.

■ The growth of the insurgency, the failures of top-down statebuilding, and the influence of 

counterinsurgency doctrine all help explain the proliferation of militias since the 

mid-2000s.

■ Militias are formed to engage in protective violence but often mete out predatory and 

abusive violence.

■ No necessary or straightforward connection exists between militia formation and state 

breakdown or collapse. 

■ Preceded by several other militia programs, the Afghan Local Police (ALP) emerged as a 

U.S.-funded effort.

■ ALP militias are less a threat to national-level stability and more a danger that after 2014 

an oversized and unevenly trained national armed force will fragment into numerous 

competing militias.

■ Outsourcing community protection and defense to the ALP—rather than extending state 

power and legitimacy—may have had the opposite effect.

■ The ALP will not go away, has already left a long-term legacy that Afghans will have to 

deal with, and is symptomatic of a wider deficiency of the post-2001 intervention.

■ The long-term future of the ALP program remains uncertain. If it continues, however, it 

should not be expanded. Stronger state oversight and support are needed, and plans 

should be developed to facilitate the absorption of the ALP into the Afghan National 

Police (ANP).

Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan

USIP.ORG 5

Introduction

In the context of the Afghan security transition of 2014, when the bulk of foreign military 

forces are due to withdraw, policy debates have focused on the role and capabilities of the 

Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).1 Much effort has been devoted to building up and 

bureaucratizing the means of violence in Afghanistan with a view to establishing a legitimate 

monopoly over the means of coercion. Yet this has been paralleled by a series of government 

and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) experiments in arming local defense forces, 

including local militias under the ALP, to fight the insurgency and provide security at the 

local level. Frequently, notions of Afghan ownership, local solutions, and cost-effectiveness 

are invoked to justify such programs. This strategy is not without controversy, however. It has 

prompted concerns about the efficacy and impact of such interventions on the Afghan state’s 

capacity to rein in armed groups, impose a monopoly over the means of violence, improve security, balance civil-military relations, enforce the rule of law, create political stability, and end 

the internal conflict. These debates on the role of irregular forces tend to be driven by agency 

interests and based on limited or disputed evidence.

This report attempts to provide an empirically based and independent analysis of the ALP 

program.2

 It aims to show how the program and its previous iterations evolved and its impacts at the local and national levels. The research addresses the roles and impacts of the ALP 

program on security and political dynamics in the context of ongoing counterinsurgency and 

stabilization operations and the transition of security responsibilities from Western forces to 

Afghan security forces.3

Background

International intervention in Afghanistan has been driven and shaped by different (and competing) logics, justifications, and modalities.4

 Although it is often claimed that all good things 

come together, in practice, major contradictions and trade-offs are involved in pursuing multiple objectives simultaneously.5

 The most fundamental contradiction is attempting to build 

peace while fighting a war (Suhrke 2011). This contradiction manifests itself in the sphere of 

policing in the form of tension between a U.S. focus on paramilitary policing to pursue the war 

and a European focus on civil policing to consolidate the peace.6

In addition to a complex range of often contradictory interests, the international response 

has shifted over time. Intervention began as a relatively minimalist endeavor involving a limited presence of U.S. ground forces fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban through local proxies.7

This changed over time to a more expansive, top-down form of statebuilding—encompassing all the transformative ambitions and recognized deficiencies of what is generally called 

liberal peacebuilding—radical institution building, good governance, reconstruction, security 

sector reform, rule of law, and so forth.8

 This was followed by a third phase, returning in some 

respects to a modified version of the first phase, in response to the intensification of the insurgency and the evident failures of statebuilding. The terminology, if not always the practices, 

changed to incorporate what are known as more bottom-up, Afghan-led, culturally appropriate, quick-impact stabilization measures. This approach was influenced by wider trends in 

military doctrine, shifts in personnel—particularly the arrival of General Stanley McChrystal 

as the commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)—and imperatives 

from the field. This was paralleled by a massive surge in international troops and financial 

resources aimed at turning the situation around. Thomas Barfield (2012) nicely captures the 

shift in how the international community defined and responded to the ‘Afghan problem’: In 
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6 USIP.ORG

2002, the absence of a strong centralized state was viewed as the driver of insecurity and terrorism, yet by 2011, a corrupt, illegitimate central state was considered the core of the problem. 

A fourth and most recent phase has been transition, the drawdown of foreign troops by 2014 

and the handover of ownership to the Afghan government, including responsibility for fighting the Taliban and providing security for the population. This latest phase has involved a 

further and hasty redefinition of the problem and the criteria for success—leading to a search 

for pragmatic solutions—and the ALP can perhaps be understood as one manifestation of this 

shift toward expediency. This phase has also been marked by the surfacing of long-standing 

tensions between the Afghan government and international actors, particularly the United 

States. President Hamid Karzai has openly distanced himself from the U.S. war agenda and 

emphasized Afghan sovereignty and independence.

Shifting Security and Policing Environment

International intervention at the end of 2001 marked the mutation of thirty years of conflict 

into a new phase rather than the beginning of a transition from war to peace. The preceding 

war years had seen the growing decentralization of the means of violence, associated with 

the emergence of a new class of military entrepreneurs and a political economy shaped by 

military patrimonialism. The collapse of the Najibullah regime was followed by a demodernization of the army, in which, over time, fragments of the regular army in the north gradually 

assumed the character of militias, similar to other military forces in the rest of the country 

(Giustozzi 2009a).9 The Taliban regime to some extent centralized the means of violence, including through an effective disarmament campaign, a process that was reversed by internationally promoted regime change, leading to the further fragmentation of the political-military 

landscape.

International military intervention, the exclusive elite pact forged in Bonn in 2001,10 the 

failures of statebuilding, and the absence of meaningful reconciliation efforts galvanized the 

insurgency, which over time intensified and spread geographically. Although patchy attempts 

at disarmament were attempted in the north and less so in the south, as the insurgency intensified, the U.S. military embarked on arming Pashtun rivals of the Taliban in the south. If war 

is, as Ariel Ahram suggests, “an effective auditor of institutional performance” (2011, 16), the 

growing insurgency exposed deficiencies in the capacity and legitimacy of the Afghan state.

Western efforts to regulate what was in effect a security market have been contradictory 

and often ill considered. On the one hand, interventions were directed toward bureaucratizing coercion by building up a monopoly on the means of violence through security sector 

reform, which was defined as the five related pillars of the Afghan National Army (ANA) 

and ANP; judicial reform; disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR); and 

counternarcotics. On the other hand, foreign forces continued to support and fund local 

power brokers, creating militias and deploying private security companies, who operated 

either above or below the law.11 Unsurprisingly, given the continued high levels of insecurity 

and the absence of real socioeconomic opportunities to encourage the reintegration of fighters, DDR programs were a failure. Warlord democratization by absorbing jihadi factions 

into key ministries succeeded in relation to some of the senior figures within the northern 

alliance. However, many provincial strongmen resisted the extension of centralized state 

power into the periphery, while mid- to low-level fighters had few options beyond militarypatrimonial networks or engagement in the drug economy. The underlying structural conditions that explain the continued persistence of illegal militias, far from being transformed, 

The underlying structural 

conditions that explain 

the continued persistence 

of illegal militias, far from 

being transformed, have 

intensified.
Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan

USIP.ORG 7

have intensified over time. Programs that attempted to centralize the means of coercion and 

establish effective policing were a threat to the interests of many, both within and outside the 

state (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh 2013).

Efforts to invest in policing reflect and have contributed to this security environment. 

Initially, investment in policing was limited and muddled (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh 2013; 

Wilder 2007), though in 2006, the Afghanistan Compact12 stated that by the end of 2010 

there would be a fully constituted, professional, functional, and ethnically balanced ANP and 

Afghan Border Police (ABP) with a combined force of up to 62,000 that had the ability to 

meet the security needs of the country and be increasingly fiscally sustainable. The ANP’s 

growth targets expanded, paralleling the increase in size of the ANSF more generally, and 

the ANP numbered some 148,500 personnel in February 2013 (Planty and Perito 2013, 1).13

Between 2001 and 2011, the international community spent more than $15 billion on Afghanistan’s police. The focus for the United States, however, was primarily on the paramilitary 

dimensions of policing rather than on building an institution to enforce the rule of law.14 As 

the United States became more involved in funding and organizing policing, the strategic 

goal was increasingly to fight off organized challenges to state power.15 This emphasis on 

training and using the police in offensive counterinsurgency roles reflected the institutional 

preferences of the U.S. Department of Defense, which has had primary responsibility for police assistance in Afghanistan since 2005 (Rosenau 2008, 10; Perito 2009, 5). Between 2005 

and February 2013, the United States, the largest donor in this sector, spent some $14 billion 

to train and equip the ANP (Planty and Perito 2013). Efforts directed at restructuring and 

training the police achieved mixed success, and even by 2011, the uniformed police “was still 

more like a fragmented coterie of militias than either a paramilitary police or a civilian police 

force” (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh 2011,18).

This combination of protracted conflict and invasive international intervention has led to a 

militarized and volatile security landscape inseparable from the wider regional conflict system, 

given that both Afghanistan and Pakistan use asymmetrical warfare to pursue statebuilding 

goals.

The decentralization of violence and remobilization has arguably accelerated in the run-up 

to the transition deadline. When General David Petraeus took over for McChrystal in 2010, 

the rules of engagement shifted from counterinsurgency back to counterterrorism. This shift 

was reflected in an increased reliance on night raids, aerial bombardment, and drones. Some 

argue that Afghanistan has increasingly become a dirty war whose brutality has increased 

insecurity, which in turn has been used to justify the arming of communities by U.S. Special 

Operations Forces (SOFs), the Afghan state, or regional strongmen (Boone 2011). A negative 

spiral is in evidence as concerns about a chaotic post-2014 scenario contribute to a spontaneous rearmament by communities and militias. 

Emergence of the ALP

Historically, state formation has involved the creation of a military specializing in the monopoly of large-scale violence (Giustozzi 2011; Tilly 1992; Olson 2000). Policing, which 

tends to occur in the shadow of this process, involves the management of small-scale violence 

(Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh 2013, 3). The increased provision of state policing has often gone 

hand in hand with the gradual disarmament of the population and the expropriation of policing capacities from the communities. This is associated with what Michael Mann characterizes 

as a shift from states that rule through despotic or raw coercive power to those that govern 

The focus for the United 

States was primarily on the 

paramilitary dimensions 

of policing rather than on 

building an institution to 

enforce the rule of law.
PEACEWORKS 90

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through infrastructural power associated with policing and technologies of governance, such as 

census making and mapping, that make society more legible and therefore more manageable 

(1984). However, the creation of a military and police force is costly in financial and political 

terms. Historically, states and imperial powers have frequently acted as brokers rather than 

monopolists, seeking to extend their control through franchising the means of coercion. This 

pattern was typical of feudal Europe and the norm for pre-twentieth-century states in much 

of Asia (Scott 2009). Imperial powers such as the British developed a policy of indirect rule, 

which involved creating irregular armies to police and administer the empire, particularly in 

frontier zones.16 Such armies and constabularies were less costly in manpower, resources, and 

political risks. One example is the Sandeman system, developed on the northwest frontier in 

the nineteenth century and recreated in the form of the watch and ward system in the early 

twentieth century and echoed in U.S. counterinsurgency strategies in the Philippines and Vietnam. Policing by tradition is therefore not new. The Sandeman system of frontier management 

introduced and institutionalized the jirga system, irrevocably changing Baluch society in the 

name of its preservation (Marsden and Hopkins 2011, 73).17 Contemporary counterinsurgency (COIN) and development policy literature on Afghanistan similarly reinvent and reify 

local traditions, including older forms of community policing, such as arbaki.

18

Historically, a symbiotic relationship between bandits, warlords, and states has been common (Gallant 1999). The assumption that building a Weberian monopoly over the means of 

violence is a necessary condition for state formation is not always born out by historical experience. As Ariel Ahram notes, violence devolution can be seen as a mode of military development rather than as a defective mode of state formation (2011, 130). In Burma, for example, 

the state has deployed militias effectively to regain control over and pacify its unruly borderlands (McCoy 1999; Woods 2011). Similarly, the Sri Lankan state created Tamil militias to 

fight the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and police the Tamil population in the 

north and east.

This body of literature suggests that militias are not necessarily a manifestation of state 

breakdown or agents of statecide, to borrow Antonio Giustozzi’s term (2009b). They may contribute to disintegrative or integrative dynamics, depending on context. Critics of the ALP 

point to the Najibullah period as a warning about the danger of militias, given that governmentcreated militias ultimately contributed to the downfall of the regime once Moscow ended the 

external subsidies that held the system together. However, the relative importance of militias 

was much greater during Najibullah’s time, leading to a symbiotic relationship between government and irregular forces.19 Furthermore, Western donors are unlikely to suddenly curtail 

subsidies to the Afghan state as the Soviets were forced to do, which made the militias defect 

and sealed the downfall of the Najibullah regime.

States and empires have frequently deployed surrogate forces to extend their control and 

counter violent resistance to their rule. How these forces are deployed and the forms they take 

vary from place to place. The term militia is frequently used as a catchall that lumps together 

dissimilar phenomena. For this study, the distinction between home guards and militias is 

important. The former are recruited from a particular locale and are responsible for policing 

that locale. Their role is primarily defensive and policing. This most closely resembles the arbaki 

model, which was meant to maintain law and order and defend the borders and boundaries 

of the tribe or community. In the context of counterinsurgency operations, home guards are 

meant to secure control over the population and minimize insurgent abilities to establish a 

support network among civilians (Hughes and Tripodi 2009, 11).20 On the other hand, militias 
Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan

USIP.ORG 9

are larger and more powerful than home guard units and combine policing with an offensive 

military role and frequently operate over a wider geographical area.21 The boundaries between 

the two structures may frequently be blurred, particularly given that organizations have a tendency to mutate over time.

Antecedents

International actors have funded and supported efforts to disarm factions and centralize the 

means of coercion. DDR was launched in April 2003 in the form of the UN-created and 

Japanese-funded Afghan New Beginnings Program (ANBP), which targeted what was known 

as the Afghan Military Forces. This program was followed by the Disarmament of Illegal 

Armed Groups (DIAG) program.22 Both, however, were largely failures in terms of achieving 

stated aims (Bhatia and Sedra 2008; Giustozzi 2008; Sedra 2006). As noted earlier, opportunities for rank-and-file combatants were limited; only a few went into the newly constituted 

ANA, and many joined local militias or semiprivate police forces (Suhrke 2011, 142).

In parallel with these programs, other international actors were supporting rearmament 

and contributing to the further decentralization of violence. This support occurred from the 

time of the invasion, when the CIA channeled funds to Northern Alliance warlords to pursue the war on terror. This model—promoted by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld—of 

deploying special forces and arming local proxies, initially appeared to be successful in achieving regime change. It was followed in subsequent years by a succession of experiments in local policing or community militias, including the Afghan National Auxiliary Police (ANAP), 

Afghan Public Protection Program (APPP or AP3), Community Defense Initiative (CDI), 

Local Defense Initiative (LDI), arbaki, Critical Infrastructure Program (CIP), counterterrorism pursuit teams, the Kandahar Strike Force, and the Khost Protection Force. Some of these 

programs were locally initiated—sometimes spontaneously by provincial governors, regional 

strongmen, and local communities as the growth of the insurgency increased the demand for 

paramilitary policing, particularly in the north—and others were pushed from the center or 

the provinces by foreign forces. The management of the various militia groups was located 

in different parts of the Afghan government (although they often had closer relationships 

with foreign forces than with the government), including the Independent Directorate for 

the Protection of Public Properties and Highways by Tribal Support, Ministry of Interior 

(MOI), President’s Office, and National Directorate of Security (NDS). The rationale for their 

formation was linked to a range of tactical and strategic objectives, including fighting the Taliban, winning election campaigns, strengthening local power bases, pursuing local vendettas, 

strengthening the central government, or promoting Taliban reintegration.

The experiments reflected wider developments in COIN doctrine, which as a body of 

knowledge and set of practices appeared to mesh with the statebuilding and stabilization 

agenda. The dissemination of this practical knowledge was associated with a number of what 

David Miller and Tom Mills (2010) call warrior intellectuals and associated policy institutes 

and academic institutions, which at the end of the Cold War were influential in helping carve 

out a new role for Western militaries in relation to expeditionary forces, statebuilding operations, and counterinsurgency campaigns.23 COIN doctrines involved reframing warfighting, 

from being conceived as purely a military task to primarily a battle for governance. Counterinsurgency is understood to be “an umbrella term that describes the full range of measures that 

governments take to defeat insurgencies. These can be political, administrative, military, economic, psychological or informational, and are almost always used in combination” (Kilcullen 
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2011, 42). Soft power is deployed alongside hard power to win local hearts and minds and to 

engage in more nuanced ways with the local terrain. This requires deep knowledge of civilian populations. COIN represented a shift from the Weinberger-Powell doctrine of using 

overwhelming force to achieve a decisive victory, but U.S. COIN doctrine does not hide the 

fact that, as Kilcullen concedes, “There is always a lot of killing, one way or another” (cited 

in Gregory 2008, 19). Nor ultimately does it provide a convincing answer to what happens 

when the priorities of the military occupation are not aligned with those of the host political 

system. For example, the arming of Sunni militias in Iraq or the military’s involvement with 

traditional justice institutions in Afghanistan are in tension with the putative establishment of 

a monopoly of force or the state’s universal legal jurisdiction (Ledwidge 2009). Afghanistan, 

like Iraq, became a testing ground for this supposedly new but actually very old doctrine. It was 

picked up and embraced enthusiastically by military planners, special forces, and politicians 

desperately seeking solutions to what they saw as the lack of progress in Afghanistan and seeking to justify and legitimize what had become an increasingly difficult enterprise to package 

and sell to Western electorates.

Yet there was a growing perception among Western policymakers that the state was part of 

the problem, especially the formal policing structure.24 Furthermore, as the insurgency expanded and changed tactics to target major population centers, the regular police were increasingly 

deployed to either protect urban centers or to fight in operations alongside or in support of the 

ANA and foreign forces. Consequently, the police were taking heavy casualties, an estimated 

twice as many as the ANA. Attrition rates for the ANP have remained at an annual rate of 

25 percent overall with rates up to 70 to 80 percent in some units (Planty and Perito 2013, 

5). One of the rationales for militia programs such as the AP3 and Afghan Public Protection 

Force (APPF) was to free the regular police force from protecting government installations 

and officials and return them to civilian policing and rule of law duties.

COIN experts also drew on—or reinvented—Afghan traditions of community policing 

to justify the promotion of such programs.25 Since 2006, the United States has supported several efforts to establish militias. The first was the ANAP, when in February 2006 the Afghan 

Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Finance approached the Americans with the idea of 

creating a new force involving an additional two hundred to four hundred police per district 

(Jones 2012). Under this plan, provincial governors could recruit 11,271 men from 124 highrisk districts in twenty-one provinces. The program aimed to train villagers for ten days and 

equip them with guns. By July 2007, some 8,300 ANAP members received training. They were 

then sent to secure checkpoints and conducted operations with coalition forces in Helmand, 

Zabul, Kandahar, Farah, Uruzgan, and Ghazni, reaching a strength of nine thousand men. It 

was ostensibly managed by the MOI in close collaboration with the U.S. Combined Security 

Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A). However, the force was widely criticized for 

reversing the effects of DIAG. Many of its participants were thought to be Taliban agents, and 

nearly all were members of forces loyal to provincial power brokers (Perito 2009, 9). The force 

was disbanded in May 2008.

In 2009, MOI and U.S. special operation forces piloted the AP3 in Wardak. It was funded 

and implemented by SOFs until mid-2010, when U.S. regular forces took over. The plan initially 

provided for between one hundred and two hundred guardians to be recruited in four insecure 

districts, but no more than a total of twelve hundred in the entire province. The AP3 was in theory part of an integrated, sequenced program to improve security that included four elements: 

deployment of U.S. troops that were part of the surge, training of locally based ANP officers unThe arming of Sunni 

militias in Iraq or the 

military’s involvement 

with traditional justice 

institutions in Afghanistan 

are in tension with the 

putative establishment of 

a monopoly of force or 

the state’s universal legal 

jurisdiction.
Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan

USIP.ORG 11

der the Focused District Development program and their interim replacement by the ANCOP 

constabulary, the recruitment of an AP3 cadre, and provision of development assistance from 

the Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP). Districts that cooperated were eligible for an additional $500,000 in CERP funds as an incentive to participate (Perito 2009, 10).

Haneef Atmar, the minister of interior at the time, saw the AP3 as a pragmatic solution 

to the problem of local insecurity. However, he also explicitly linked it to the wider project of 

centralization and institutionalization and therefore emphasized the need for central control 

and regulation of surrogate forces. Local shura were to select local recruits, who were to be 

vetted by government institutions, trained by SOFs, paid directly by the MOI, and required 

to report to the district police chief, bypassing their commanders. Atmar’s preference was for 

small groups linked to local shuras and not for either commanders pursuing personal agendas 

or large militias that could pose a military risk to the government. Paying local recruits directly 

through the bank and not through their commanders was one way of engendering loyalty to 

the state rather than to militia commanders. Further, Atmar envisaged the gradual replacement 

of private security companies (PSCs) with the APPF.26 The AP3 and APPF were envisaged 

as two sides of the same coin.27 The AP3 were to serve guard duties as a defensive force at 

the provincial and district level to free regular police from those tasks. The model envisaged 

a government-controlled stopgap measure tied to the growth of the ANSF, whereby militia 

units would be demobilized or integrated into regular forces as the ANP and ANA developed. 

This was a pragmatic way of building state power by extending control over armed groups and 

the means of violence. Atmar saw AP3 as a means of registering existing weapons belonging 

to local villagers willing to join the force and in so doing promoting the goals of DDR and 

DIAG.28 However, the gap between the theory and the practice was wide, largely because the 

theory was based on an outmoded set of assumptions about the capacity of tribal leaders to 

command the loyalties of local villagers. In practice, it was the militia commanders who held 

the real power in post-2001 Afghanistan.

Emergence 

In 2009, General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the ISAF and U.S. Forces Afghanistan, 

conducted a thorough interagency assessment of the situation. It concluded that the insurgents had increased their control of territory in most parts of rural Afghanistan, in particular 

the Pashtun areas in the south, west, and east. As the AP3 was getting under way in March 

2009 in Jalrez district in Wardak province, U.S. and Afghan officials began discussing options 

to establish rural militias under the CDI, later branded the LDI. U.S. planning was led by 

Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command—Afghanistan (CFSOCC-A) 

under the leadership of Brigadier General Edward Reeder. The program’s goal was to “identify 

local communities that seek outside help against insurgents” and to “assist the local population 

to provide their own security with defensive ‘neighborhood watch’ type programs.”29 Reeder’s 

staff claimed to have analyzed the history of militias in Afghanistan. It was, they claimed, a 

“model built consciously on Afghanistan’s previous stable periods” (cited in Jones 2012, 30).

The CFSOCC-A plan involved deploying U.S. and Afghan special operations teams to 

live and operate in villages that had decided to resist insurgents. They would focus on three 

tasks: improving informal governance through village shuras, establishing or co-opting village defense forces, and improving development. The militia had to number fewer than three 

hundred, be defensive, fall under the oversight of village jirgas, and be closely monitored by 

the Afghan government and NATO. The deployment of U.S. and Afghan SOFs to villages 
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facilitated oversight. At this stage of the program, no formal role was envisaged for the MOI or 

any other Afghan central state institution, which meant that the SOFs would work with local 

shuras they either found or established for that purpose. It was thus presented as a truly local 

initiative, far removed from the corrupting influence of Kabul.

Four criteria were set down to determine where CDI-LDI units would be established:

1. The locals had already resisted insurgents.

2. The area was strategically important for the Taliban and other insurgent groups.

3. The area was strategically important for the Afghan government and NATO.

4. An assessment team found that it was feasible, based on local support, terrain, and population density.

In July and August 2009, CFSOCC-A briefed McChrystal and won his approval for the 

concept. In August, CFSOCC-A briefed the ministers of interior and defense, Haneef Atmar 

and Rahim Wardak. Both ministers reportedly supported the formation of local militias (Jones 

2012, 31). It was also in August that CFSOCC-A deployed a special operations team to Nili in 

Daykundi province to train forces with the help of the ANP. By December, the United States 

had teams training a total of one hundred militia members in four other districts.30

However, the CDI-LDI initiative proved controversial with Afghan officials and the U.S. 

political leadership in Kabul. The LDI was never a full-scale program but more a series of 

experiments tried in Arghandab (Kandahar), Nili (Daykundi), Achin (Nangahar), Gereshk 

(Helmand) and parts of Paktia.31 The program, which Haneef Atmar later called illegal, involved turf battles between the Independent Directorate of Local Government (IDLG), the 

MOI, and the Independent Directorate for the Protection of Public Properties and Highways 

by Tribal Support led by Wolesi jirga member Aref Noorzai, a relative of Hamid Karzai.32

Nevertheless, in mid-November, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry reported that CFSOCC-A was conducting survey work and tribal engagement and outreach to local 

shuras on CDI-LDI. Although ISAF had sought ministerial approval for the scheme, by the 

end of October, Karzai had not given the Afghan government’s formal approval. The ambassador insisted on a firm approval by the president and the cabinet before implementation, even 

though by August, CFSOCC-A had already deployed special operations teams to four provinces. The U.S. political leadership in Kabul feared that local militias set up by SOFs outside 

the framework of Afghan institutions would come at the expense of formal institutions and 

distract from efforts to build the Afghan army and police by potentially undercutting popular and international support for funding formal security forces, especially in the absence of 

plans to eventually reintegrate them into the ANSF or disarm and disband them. They could 

also reverse the rather modest progress made under DDR and DIAG programs in disarming 

mujahideen militias (U.S. Embassy Kabul 2009c).

In April 2010, Brigadier General Scott Miller took control of CFSOCC-A and, though 

the Afghan government had not yet granted a formal approval, began a significant expansion of the program with the support of McChrystal. He coined the term ‘Village Stability Operations’ to capture the governance and development aspects of the program. When 

Petraeus took command of the ISAF that July, he pushed for and succeeded in extracting 

a formal agreement from Karzai. Keen on expanding the ISAF’s local militia initiatives to 

fight the insurgency, Petraeus must have realized that an expansion of the program could not 

have gone ahead without the approval of the Afghan government. He needed legal cover 

and political legitimacy for the operation. Following intense wrangling between Karzai and 
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USIP.ORG 13

Petraeus, the program was officially authorized in August 2010 under the MOI, calling the 

militia members Afghan Local Police.33 As a result, most of the existing militias were eventually incorporated into the ALP. For example, the MOI directive of June 2011 affirms that the 

aim of the ALP program was to incorporate all previous village and district defense programs 

(MOI 2011). The U.S. Department of Defense stated that the ALP program incorporated 

previous village-level defensive programs, such as the CDI-LDI (DOD 2012a, 2). In many 

places, the ALP label became a seal of approval to legitimize existing local militias that SOFs 

often set up outside any agreed framework. It was an attempt to “legitimize what was really 

a militia program by calling it ‘police’ and making it part of the MOI.”34 By December 2010, 

the ALP had three thousand men in fifteen districts. By December 2011, it had ten thousand 

in fifty-seven districts.

The idea of the APPF, as noted earlier, developed in parallel with the ALP. It was discussed 

in July 2010—about the same time that negotiations over the ALP heated up—but was actually created in early 2011 to replace the hundreds of private security companies that had protected institutions and infrastructure throughout the country. President Karzai issued a decree 

in August 2010, ordering the disbanding of all PSCs by December 2010. However, following 

pressure from the ISAF and development contractors and non-governmental organizations 

(NGOs) that depended on PSCs for their security, a one-year extension to March 2013 was 

negotiated (DOD 2011b; Aikins 2012). These firms had operated without government oversight, and the majority of them were owned by Afghan power brokers allied with Karzai. The 

APPF is supervised by the MOI and operates under the presidential decree that disbanded 

private security providers. The APPF’s fourteen thousand Afghan personnel are a static guard 

force that protects public buildings, development projects, and vital infrastructure (Planty and 

Perito 2013, 4–5).35

The ALP, as described by the Department of Defense, is a village-focused local defense initiative that complements the ISAF’s counterinsurgency efforts by targeting rural areas affected 

by the insurgency to enable conditions for improved security, governance, and development 

(DOD 2010; 2012a). The ALP is a complementary component to the VSO program (DOD 

2011b). It focuses on rural areas that have limited ANSF and ISAF presence, where Afghan 

communities were already resisting the Taliban and providing for their own security (DOD 

2011a). However, before the ALP was formally launched, the U.S. military’s priority of containing the insurgency at the local level empowered militia commanders who received direct 

U.S. military patronage, such as former PSC commander Azizullah in Urgun, whose forces 

were eventually transitioned into the ALP (Reid 2011). The Afghan government perceived 

such armed units as a threat to its authority and aimed to bring U.S.-supported local militias 

under central government control. The ALP and the APPF were thus seen as instruments to 

further the goal of centralizing the means of coercion.

The ALP, in its final manifestation, was a compromise solution. On the one hand, it allowed the U.S. military to legalize and legitimize its existing network of ad hoc local militias 

and expand it in support of its counterinsurgency strategy. On the other hand, the Afghan 

government, at least in principle, managed to put an end to such ad hoc initiatives as the CDILDI and extended its control over the means of coercion by reining in U.S. military patronage. 

Two important questions to ask in relation to the CDI-LDI and ALP are why the U.S. military chose to adopt the CDI-LDI model following the AP3 and why the Afghan government, 

in particular President Karzai—who initially raised objections—agreed to U.S. plans to expand 

its local militia program and make the ALP a national force, albeit with a local mandate.

In many places, the ALP 

label became a seal of 

approval to legitimize 

existing local militias that 

SOFs often set up outside 

any agreed framework.
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14 USIP.ORG

The answer to these questions can be partly found in the SOFs’ experience with AP3 in 

Wardak in 2009. U.S. military officers in Wardak argued that setting up “local defense forces 

is done better when SOFs live and work with them and are under their direct control.”36

However, this model “lacked broader legitimacy and links to Afghan government institutions.”37 The ALP as a presidentially approved and MOI-run program had “strategic level 

buy-in and legitimacy, but at tactical level,” as military officers noted, “it is a mess, and MOI 

is unable to service it properly.”38 As a result, the LDI program was launched to overcome the 

limited success of the AP3. The general conclusion among the SOF community in Wardak 

was that the bureaucratic nature and the centralized control by the MOI had complicated 

AP3 implementation. The LDI was launched to remove the central government’s control 

and free the hands of SOFs to experiment with more locally driven initiatives to raise villagebased militias. With the rollout of the LDI, the view that local militias independently operated by SOFs were more successful gained traction within U.S. military circles and paved the 

way for Petraeus to propose its expansion nationally. However, when he presented the idea 

to Karzai, he faced opposition. As Karzai’s national security advisor admitted in early 2012, 

there were intense negotiations and numerous disagreements between Karzai and Petraeus 

on this issue.39 To some extent, this was also a fight over control of patronage and the people 

it empowered.

As noted earlier, the Afghan government had objected to what it perceived as unilateral 

efforts by U.S. SOFs to create local militias outside the control of the central government. 

Furthermore, the government’s objections may have been linked to Karzai’s preference for 

and prioritization of rebuilding the ANSF. In fact, in 2005, Karzai proposed increasing the 

size of the national police to improve security in the border areas with Pakistan, indicating a 

preference to train and equip more ANA and ANP to meet the security needs of the population and to fight the insurgents. When his request was turned down by U.S. and NATO 

officials, he then proposed creating what he called community or local police, modeled on 

the arbaki concept.40 His plan was to arm local villagers in those areas so they could provide 

their own security and protect their homes. They would receive funds and military equipment in exchange for agreeing to operate under the control of the MOI. 

It appears that Petraeus was not in favor of international forces or of the ANSF conducting COIN operations in insecure areas. According to Afghan officials involved in the 

negotiations, Petraeus’s proposal was influenced by his experience with the Sons of Iraq 

program in Iraq. It involved setting up small anti-Taliban local armed groups paid by the 

U.S. military to work directly under SOFs command without links to central government 

institutions.41 Karzai argued that such a plan would lead to militia-sazi (proliferation of 

militias), the destruction of the state, and a new form of warlordism.42 To prevent this 

outcome, Karzai argued for Afghan government control and proposed an alternative in the 

form of the ALP, which allowed the creation of thousands of local police under the command of the MOI. This option enabled the Afghan government, at least in principle, to 

exercise some control over SOF-supported militias while legitimizing the U.S. expansion 

of its existing militia program.

The future of the ALP by early 2013 was unclear. Some argued for its absorption into the 

regular police, others for its disbandment, and others still for its extension. The Afghan government did not articulate a clear policy on whether to keep, expand, or disband it. The U.S. 

military indicated that it had plans to expand the more cost-effective ALP and to shrink the 

more expensive army and police units. The ALP’s strength in January 2013 stood at 19,600 in 
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USIP.ORG 15

more than one hundred districts, covering roughly 17 percent of the Afghan population, some 

five million people being protected by ALP units according to the Special Operations Command. These numbers were projected to increase to twenty-two thousand in July 2013 and 

thirty thousand by July 2015. In February 2013, plans were revealed for the Special Operations 

Command to extend a financial lifeline from the Pentagon to the ALP for at least five more 

years, providing $1.2 billion to train, arm, and pay forty-five thousand fighters. Although the 

expansion plans won the approval of U.S. commanders, and Afghan officials from the MOI 

also gave their support, Karzai and his cabinet did not officially approve the request, and the 

president remained critical of the program (Cloud and Bengali 2013; Hodge 2013).

Rationalities and Incentives

In practice, the way that the ALP program emerged and was implemented was the result of 

a complex bargaining process involving international actors, national political elites, and provincial level elites.

For international actors, the ALP was attractive because of cost efficiencies and risk transfers.43 It helped overcome manpower shortages while reducing costs and political risks. Like 

colonial systems of policing, the metropolitan centers of power seek to reduce the costs of 

policing the periphery by devolving these responsibilities to the periphery itself. As William 

Rosenau notes, local police are in effect low-cost trigger pullers (2008).

Militias were revived or created because of a perceived tactical deficit—the inability of 

regular forces to respond effectively and efficiently to insurgent activities in remote insecure 

areas where government and ISAF forces had no or limited presence. As well as being more 

cost-effective, according to their special forces mentors, they do not desert, have low attrition 

rates, and tend to win their battles, though their casualty rates are three times higher than those 

of regular forces. Their lack of institutionalization ensures a more rapid response, they know 

the local terrain, and they can generate effective intelligence—all critical factors in counterinsurgency operations.

As noted earlier, European donors were more skeptical about what they perceived as the 

paramilitarization of the police force. Whereas the American military was mostly concerned 

with increasing the capabilities of the police force to suppress the insurgency, Europeans were 

mostly worried about the weakness of the rule of law. Afghan reformers, on the other hand, 

were intent on strengthening the institutions of the Afghan state (Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh 

2011, 17).

Therefore, from the beginning, their role, status, and institutional home were ambiguous. 

Should they be a military or paramilitary force or a policing force? What should be their duties? Should they enforce the law or bring security? What was their legal status? Should they 

be subject to criminal or military law? Should they be housed in the Ministry of Interior or the 

Ministry of Defense? The Americans and Europeans had different answers to these questions, 

with the former wanting them to be more of a paramilitary force and the latter a civilian policing force. As one European official noted, “If they’re police, they shouldn’t be on the frontlines 

or manning checkpoints.”44

For national elites, the calculations were quite different. It is important to distinguish between centralizers like Karzai, who have sought to build up their power base through brokerage and patronage, and centralizers like Atmar and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani, 

who are essentially donor-dependent reformers and have sought to build the institutions of the 

central state and to disempower the men of violence in the periphery—in the process making 

Militias were revived 

or created because of 

a perceived tactical 

deficit—the inability of 

regular forces to respond 

effectively and efficiently 

to insurgent activities in 

remote insecure areas.
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16 USIP.ORG

enemies who contributed to their downfall. There are also political elites who are physically 

located at the center but are there primarily to strengthen their power bases in the provinces. 

Each of these types of actors had different reasons to support or oppose the ALP.

Karzai was initially very outspoken against all militia formations but ultimately backed 

the ALP. He appears to have seen it as an opportunity to regularize and assert control over 

the various militia experiments. In addition, earlier forms of militia creation were linked with 

attempts at building a stronger electoral base, including, for example, Aref Noorzai’s election 

militias and the IDLG’s Afghanistan Social Outreach Program (ASOP) shuras, both of which 

were vehicles for strengthening patronage relationships in relation to the 2009 presidential 

elections. The issue subsequently became mixed up with a number of other questions that set 

the president on a collision course with the United States, including the issues of regulation of 

PSCs, Afghan control over the Bagram prison, night raids by SOFs, and civilian deaths caused 

by NATO air strikes. These can also be seen as bargaining chips, used by Karzai to increase his 

regime’s control of the means of coercion and patronage and to bolster his domestic legitimacy, 

countering his image as a Western puppet.

Reformers such as former interior minister Atmar had a different take on the ALP and its 

previous iteration, the AP3. He conceptualized the AP3 as a border force based on the arbaki 

model to prevent incursions by the Taliban across the Afghan-Pakistan border. As mentioned, 

he saw it as having a specific and limited role in relation to a broader state institutionalization 

and state legitimation strategy, which in practice would have amounted to indirect rule, using 

tribes as brokers in security arrangements in the border areas.

Massoum Stanekzai, the president’s adviser on reconciliation and integration, saw the LDI, 

which evolved into the ALP, as an opportunity to reintegrate fighters and pave the way for a 

political settlement with insurgents. This perspective to some extent was in conflict with the 

goal of the U.S. SOFs, who saw them as an instrument in defeating the Taliban militarily, 

rather than as an inducement to reintegrate existing or former Taliban (PTRO 2011).

Initially, therefore, some SOF officers wanted to delink militias from reintegration, but 

government officials overseeing the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program (APRP) 

saw it as a funding disbursement mechanism in the absence of viable employment or livelihood opportunities in the provinces. As the case studies show, SOFs in practice gave in to the 

temptation to reintegrate insurgents into the ALP, arguing that “the north was too difficult, we 

had no choice but to accept them.”45

Provincial elites, including members of parliament (MPs), provincial governors, and regional strongmen, saw the ALP as another resource flow that could be captured to consolidate 

their power bases. Further down the political chain, local commanders and ALPers, who were 

trying to access resources and employment, drew on the ALP for this purpose. This attitude 

can be understood as part of a complex core-periphery bargaining relationship. For example, 

local commanders elected to parliament felt the need to maintain their power base in their 

districts and tried to use the ALP to reinforce their power but ended up clashing with former 

interior minister Bismillah Mohammadi, who refused to recruit some groups into the ALP.

Those who felt disempowered and excluded from the formal provincial security architecture saw the ALP as a way to protect themselves and as a bargaining chip with provincial 

elites. In the provinces, roads and infrastructure are strategic resources, or sources of rent, and 

the ALP can act as force multipliers for local elites who want to extend their control over these 

assets. The program can also enable local power brokers to access their constituencies, which 

would otherwise be too insecure for them to visit.

Provincial elites saw the 

ALP as another resource 

flow that could be 

captured to consolidate 

their power bases.
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USIP.ORG 17

ALP in the Provinces

The selection of the three case studies was based on the following criteria. Wardak constituted 

the first joint U.S.-Afghan government effort to set up local militias under the MOI and 

provided the intellectual soil for similar initiatives elsewhere. Both Baghlan and Kunduz were 

strategically important in relation to the insurgency after 2008 and became sites of militia 

formation, leading to very different outcomes. The three cases therefore allow comparison between geographical spaces, over different time periods, and with varying outcomes (see map 1).

Wardak

With an estimated population of more than half a million, and lying a mere thirty-five kilometers from Kabul, Wardak province is divided into nine districts and borders Kabul and Logar 

in the east, Parwan and Bamyan in the north and west, and Ghazni in the south. It is home 

to an ethnically mixed population of Pashtuns, who constitute a majority in the province, and 

Hazaras and Tajiks.46 Areas along the Kabul-Kandahar highway are more densely populated. 

Despite its strategic value to Kabul, Wardak is graded as a third category province, which 

means that it does not attract the same level of financial and political support as grade one 

provinces like Kandahar and Balkh. In relative terms, it is resource poor, given that it has no 

border with a neighboring country to generate custom revenues, little industry, and few largescale commercial enterprises, though an unexplored mining sector holds modest economic 

potential in the future. The majority of the population lives in rural areas (97.7 percent), and 

about half of those live in remote mountainous areas. Wardak’s economy is based mainly on 

revenues from subsistence and commercial agriculture (46 percent of households) and labor 

migration and remittances (16 percent); moreover, 21 percent of household income is derived 

from livestock, 24 percent from trade, and 45 percent from nonfarm labor. The predominately 

Hazara district of Behsud-e-Markazi is responsible for the bulk of the agricultural production, 

including wheat, vegetables, and animal products.47 The Kabul-Kandahar highway through 

Map 1. Afghanistan Provinces

Map 1. Afghanistan Provinces
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18 USIP.ORG

the provincial capital Maidanshahr and Sayedabad is a major transport route for commercial 

goods and ISAF supplies as well as a source of instability and rent-seeking by both government 

officials and insurgents.48

Wardak is politically and strategically important because of its proximity to Kabul and its 

status as gateway to the south. This explains why the province has remained so insecure and 

why, since 2009, it has become a testing ground for local governance and local defense initiatives as part of U.S. military efforts to bring stability to Wardak in order to secure Kabul.49

The politico-military environment in Wardak has been shaped by a succession of armed 

groups dating back to the years of conflict before 2001, including Hizb-e-Islami, Harakate-Inqilab-e-Islami, Itihad-e-Islami, Hizb-e-Wahdat-e-Islami, and the Taliban.50 Competition 

for power among the different armed groups frequently led to open conflict. For example, factional rivalries in the 1980s and 1990s between Hizb and Harakat resulted in more than three 

thousand deaths in and around Maidanshahr alone.51 Political and military fragmentation continued as a result of power struggles among mujahideen factions after the fall of the Taliban 

in November 2001. This fragmentation was reflected in the structure of the provincial administration in late 2001 and early 2002. Commander Abdul Ahmad of Sayyaf ’s Itihad-e-Islami 

faction took the provincial police chief ’s post. The governor’s authority was disputed by commander Ghulam Rohani Nangyalai of Hizb-e-Islami (Khalis). The Shura-e-Nizar-dominated 

government in Kabul appointed a local Tajik as head of the intelligence bureau.52 Military control fell to General Muzafaruddin, a former Hizb-e-Islami commander close to Shura-e-Nizar. 

He took over the army’s 42nd division, which numbered 4,300 personnel.53 In this capacity, 

Muzafaruddin received support from the Northern Alliance security structures in Kabul during 

the power struggle against commander Nangyalai. Mohammad Musa Hotak and his brother 

Ghulam Mohammad Hotak maintained significant quantities of weapons and armed men 

under their command and were believed to be more powerful than the provincial governor.54

According to Ghulam Mohammad, he commanded more than three thousand armed men 

before they were demobilized in 2004.55 Months later, the two brothers were arrested by U.S. 

forces and detained in Bagram. Ghulam Mohammad spent two and half years in U.S. detention 

and following his release was appointed commander of the U.S.-supported AP3.

Apart from Pashtun power brokers, a prominent Hazara politician from Hizb-e-Wahdat, 

Vice President Karim Khalili, is from Wardak and has a strong political base in the Hazara 

areas of the province. Relations between Pashtun nomads and settled Hazaras have frequently 

erupted in conflict, particularly in Behsud-e-Markazi, Hesa-e-Awal Behsud, and Daimirdad 

districts. Armed clashes between the two groups have intensified since they were first reported 

in April 2008 (Coghlan 2008). In response, thousands of Hazara took to the streets of Kabul 

demanding government action (Reuters 2008). Karzai issued a decree banning Kuchis (Pashtun nomads) from entering the Hazara areas of Wardak and the central highlands.56 Despite 

attempts by Kabul to settle the issue, renewed clashes in 2010 coincided with parliamentary 

elections, which increased external meddling and contributed to violent riots in Kabul with 

protesters firing at the police (Foschini 2010).

When the Taliban retreated toward Kandahar in late 2001, Wardak was handed over to 

local mujahideen groups, including Ghulam Mohammad and Haji Musa Hotak. Maidanshahr remained under the control of commanders loyal to Kabul, but most other districts were 

controlled by Hizb-e-Islami and Harakat fighters. Signs of insecurity appeared in the lead-up 

to the 2004 presidential and 2005 parliamentary elections, mostly in the districts of Sayedabad 

and Nerkh, where Hizb-e-Islami initially enjoyed military superiority. However, its dominance 
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USIP.ORG 19

gradually declined as the Taliban intensified their military campaign, and by the end of 2008, 

most parts of Wardak were under Taliban control. This rising power was linked to a broader 

expansion of the insurgency from the south to central and northern Afghanistan.57 However, 

the district of Nerkh remained divided. Jalrez district, which is home to a number of prominent 

local power brokers, emerged as the most contested region, with both Hizb-e-Islami and the 

Taliban carrying out attacks against NATO and government forces.58 When American forces 

set up a base there in 2009, they nicknamed it “the valley of death”. Likewise, Maidanshahr also 

remained insecure. After his appointment as governor of Wardak in July 2008, Halim Fidai 

traveled to Maidanshahr to assume his duties. The security situation there had deteriorated to 

the extent that insurgents were able to fire fifteen rockets into the governor’s compound on the 

day of his inauguration.59 The insurgents had become so confident that they frequently carried 

out attacks against government offices located a few hundred meters from the governor’s compound. Fearful of Taliban retaliation, civil servants rarely stayed overnight in Maidanshahr, preferring to escape to the safety of Kabul. The governor of Nerkh district (eight kilometers from 

Maidanshahr) relocated his office to a shop in the local bazaar because the district center had 

fallen under Taliban and Hizb-e-Islami control. Although security improved, insurgents were 

still able to stage a devastating bomb attack in the Maidanshahr bazaar in December 2012.

Reliable aggregate figures on the level of aid to the province are difficult to obtain. The 

Swedish Committee for Afghanistan has been working in Wardak for decades providing assistance in education, health, and rural development. U.S. Agency for International Development 

(USAID) aid funding to the province between 2002 and 2012 was around $112.8 million 

and included assistance to agriculture, education, health, and stabilization initiatives (USAID 

2011). The Turkish government established a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in Wardak 

in 2006 to promote health, education, agriculture, women’s rights, and police training, among 

others. The Turkish PRT, consisting of a limited number of military and police officers, presented itself as a nonbelligerent and development-centered organization and therefore avoided 

an active role in the security sector except in police training. In 2009, for example, the Turks 

provided police training to more than one hundred ANP throughout Wardak (U.S. Embassy 

Kabul 2009b). The Turkish PRT did not take part in any military operations against insurgents, and in general avoided contact with U.S. forces. Governor Fidai was unhappy with the 

Turkish PRT because of its limited reach and poor quality of projects. For example, of the 

fifty-six projects approved by the Turkish government for 2009, only five were launched. One 

reason was the deteriorating security situation. Another was the passive approach of the Turkish PRT. The PRT had a seventy-man security teams to support the civilian development team 

(U.S. Embassy Kabul 2009d). In 2009, Governor Fidai asked the United States to take over 

the PRT from Turkey, possibly motivated by the lure of far more resources coming into Wadak 

than what the Turkish government could provide (U.S. Embassy Kabul 2009d). The arrival of 

U.S. forces in early 2009 as part of President Obama’s mini-surge signified the importance of 

Wardak to the ISAF’s counterinsurgency campaign and opened the flow of additional U.S. 

resources to the province.

A Laboratory for Coalition Forces

In response to rising insecurity and the ineffective implementation of the ANAP program 

from 2006 through 2008, Afghan and U.S. officials began planning in October 2008 to establish a 1,200-strong force of the AP3 in four districts in Wardak province: Jalrez, Nerkh, Maidanshahr, and Sayedabad. Each district was to have between one hundred and two hundred 
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armed men. In March 2009, the implementation of AP3 began in Jalrez district. The AP3 

guardians, as the U.S. military called them, received twenty-one days of training, AK-47 rifles, 

and a small quantity of ammunition. They also received a vehicle for every twenty-five men 

and one radio for every ten men. Individual pay was $170 per month and sometimes not paid 

for months. By 2010, the AP3 had 1,100 recruits.60 The initiative, at least on paper, was part of 

a broader security effort that included deployment of additional international troops, training 

of the ANP, recruitment of AP3 cadres, and development assistance of up to $500,000 per 

district from CERP funds as an incentive to participate in the program (Perito 2009, 10). The 

AP3’s mandate was a product of competing interests and rationales. Among other things, it 

sought to improve security by denying insurgents safe havens in rural villages that had been 

cleared in ISAF and ANSF military operations, prevent insurgent attacks on government and 

NATO forces, protect infrastructure, and build the peoples’ trust in their government. Once 

security had been established and the government’s authority expanded into remote areas, the 

program intended to improve not only development outcomes but also government legitimacy 

(Lefèvre 2010).

The AP3 faced many of the same problems as the ANAP, especially in terms of recruitment, logistics support, and appropriation by local commanders. The central government and 

provincial authorities sought to use the unelected ASOP shuras to recruit AP3 members. 

However, European donors objected to the use of ASOP, as did provincial council members 

and local elders. This objection, combined with the insecurity, meant that ASOP shuras played 

a limited role in the process.61 The AP3 was funded by the U.S. military because European 

donors objected to payments to a paramilitary force. The European objections were also related 

to a broader U.S. plan to encourage villagers to form local militias against the insurgency, a step 

that seemed to undermine earlier disarmament efforts. As a result, the AP3 was seen from 

the beginning as an American program designed to defeat insurgents rather than to improve 

policing or the rule of law. Initial recruitment in Jalrez began positively where the Tajik population was encouraged by the local NDS chief to take up arms and Hazaras were eager to access 

weapons and resources to use in their ongoing clashes with Pashtun nomads in both Behsud 

districts. On the other hand, recruitment among Pashtuns was slow and met with resistance 

in southern Pashtun-dominated districts, where locals feared Taliban retribution. In addition, 

skepticism was widespread in Wardak and based largely on people’s bitter experiences with local militias during the 1980s and early 1990s (Lefèvre 2010, 9–10; HRW 2011, 44).

Early Beginnings

As insecurity increased in 2008 and posed a threat to Kabul, provincial authorities demanded 

more regular police to protect government offices, senior officials, and public infrastructure. 

The AP3 emerged partly as a solution to overcome the manpower gap given the shortage 

of regular police. Accounts differ as to the origins of the demand for AP3. Governor Fidai 

claimed it came from elders, yet in a two-day meeting in Kabul in October 2008, tribal elders 

and representatives of district shuras and provincial council members rejected a government 

declaration that intended to show popular support for the initiative (for discussion of meetings 

between elders and government officials, see Lefèvre 2010, 9; HRW 2011, 44–45).62 Instead, 

local elders asked for the deployment of more ANA and ANP units in Wardak. The U.S. 

military and Afghan government pushed ahead with the AP3 implementation regardless. The 

lack of local support and Pashtun fear of Taliban retribution help explain why recruitment was 

a problem and largely limited to the Tajik and Hazara populations.
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USIP.ORG 21

After almost a year of limited progress, the U.S. military and Afghan officials, including 

Fidai, reached out to Ghulam Mohammad Hotak, former Taliban commander and Bagram 

inmate, to rescue the program by taking up arms against his former colleagues.63 A rival of 

Wardak Police Chief General Muzafaruddin, Hotak reportedly brought five hundred of his 

supporters to the force, but after a few months of poor government support through the MOI, 

he quit the program (Lefèvre 2010, 10; HRW 2011, 46).64 Hotak bitterly regretted his decision to join the AP3 and accused the government and U.S. forces of harming his reputation 

among the people of Wardak. He added that funding for the program was always late, and 

he had to buy basic supplies for the force. As a result, he accumulated considerable personal 

debt.65 Many other local commanders also became heavily indebted because of late payments 

and inadequate logistical support, forcing them to dig into their own pockets to support their 

men, resources for which they allegedly were never properly compensated.66

In interviews, former commanders and their men complained about the lack of weapons, 

ammunition, and winter supplies, as well as the late salary payments. Although part of a plan 

that required additional U.S. and Afghan forces to clear areas before the AP3 was deployed to 

those areas and hold them, most AP3 units said they were used for clearing purposes and were 

described by local commanders as ‘shields of meat,’ stood up to receive Taliban bullets.67 As a 

result of poor support from the MOI, the AP3 remained dependent on U.S. SOFs and was in 

turn relied on for joint operations, including outside the province.68 Despite Fidai’s repeated 

attempts to get the U.S. military and the MOI to intervene to address the emerging problems 

with the AP3, he was largely ignored. The main points of concern were the lack of trust and 

support both from the Afghan government and local communities, unclear operational procedures, poor coordination among stakeholders, lack of sustainable resources, poor logistics, 

weak command and control structure, and lack of strong backup or Quick Reaction support 

from the ANSF.69

The impact of the AP3 is difficult to assess. Mathieu Lefèvre, who wrote the first comprehensive report on the AP3, came up with mixed conclusions: The U.S. military considered it a 

success but remained skeptical of expanding it to other provinces because it was slow to take 

off, resource intensive, and bureaucratically cumbersome. They had hoped for a more nimble 

approach that would bring about rapid improvement in security and win hearts and minds, 

which did not unfold in practice. Although security along the roads had improved, especially in 

Jalrez where AP3 was most heavily deployed, and people could visit the districts, government 

officials did not consider district centers safe enough to spend the night (2010, 12). Although 

even the critics of the AP3 admitted it had helped bring about relative security, Afghanistan 

NGO Safety Office data showed that violence levels had in fact increased in 2010, when the 

AP3 had reached its full strength.70 Proximity to Kabul also meant that central state elites had 

greater influence in destabilizing the situation as support flowed to competing armed groups 

for military and political dominance, as the case of Hizb-e-Islami illustrates.71

Shift from AP3 to ALP and Beyond

By summer 2010, the AP3 had transitioned into the newly approved ALP. However, the problems inherited from the AP3—including limited popular support, insufficient resources, poor 

recruitment and logistics, and weak command and control—were considered so serious that 

the ISAF finally took steps in the winter of 2011 to address them. In the summer of that year, 

the MOI had established new guidelines for the implementation of the ALP. This led the U.S. 

military to announce an ambitious plan to fix the ALP and “redo it all over again,” according 

Although even the critics 

of the AP3 admitted 

it had helped bring 

about relative security, 

Afghanistan NGO Safety 

Office data showed that 

violence levels had in fact 

increased in 2010, when 

the AP3 had reached its 

full strength.
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22 USIP.ORG

to newly established operational guidelines.72 The first step in reforming the ALP in Wardak 

involved the demobilization of 260 members of the AP3 from Maidanshahr and Sayedabad, 

who had earlier been transitioned into the ALP. They were demobilized because they did not 

meet the new ALP recruitment guidelines, which stipulated among other things that the ALP 

recruits should be recruited from local villages through shuras and vetted by local elders and 

government institutions and report to the district police chief. Most of the targeted recruits 

were from Bamyan, Laghman, and Jalalabad, though some belonged to other parts of Wardak 

where the ALP had not yet been established. In violation of procedure, most of them served 

guard duties in Maidanshahr and provided personal protection to provincial officials, who were 

not happy to have their personal guards dismissed as part of the reform process.

The application of the new ALP guidelines paved the way to establish ALP units in other 

districts. However, the U.S. military’s attempts in the spring and summer of 2012 to expand 

the ALP to Wardak’s insecure southern districts of Chak, Daimirdad and Jaghatu petered out 

when the program encountered similar problems as before. The U.S. military’s figures indicated 

only a handful of new recruits in Chak (DOD 2012b, 81). The difficulty of expanding ALP to 

southern districts in Wardak had been evident in February 2012 when Governor Fidai and the 

U.S. military tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade the elders of Sayedabad to “give their sons” to the 

ALP.73 In response, the local elders requested more army and police in place of the ALP and 

indicated their readiness to send their sons instead to the ANP. A prominent member of the 

provincial council, echoing the sentiments of his people, pointed out that “the people wanted 

more ANA and ANP, but the Americans forced AP3 and ALP on them.”74 Realizing that public opinion was coalescing against the ALP, by the summer of 2012, Fidai had given up trying to 

fix it in Wardak.75 With pressure mounting ahead of the Taliban’s spring offensive, he wrote to 

Karzai on March 12, pointing out that the ALP had not worked in Wardak and recommended 

that the 1,600 strong ALP force be disbanded and replaced with one thousand regular police (at 

the time, Wardak had slightly more than eight hundred ANP personnel).76 The governor argued 

that the ALP was not suitable for Wardak because tribal structures had been decimated by years 

of conflict, the tribes remained internally divided, and factional rivalries and conflicts among 

local power brokers ran deep. Most important, because the Taliban insurgency remained strong 

in most parts of Wardak and the government could not guarantee sufficient security, people 

generally feared for their lives and avoided a controversial program like the ALP.

In private, senior U.S. military officers and the political leadership in Kabul had more or 

less come to the same conclusions as Fidai.77 However, the government did not immediately 

react to Fidai’s recommendation, possibly to avoid souring already tense relations with the 

U.S. military locally. Subsequently, Fidai suggested an alternative strategy to defeat the Taliban 

insurgency in Wardak.78 This occurred in early Spring 2012 amid closely guarded discussions 

with local elders and SOFs allegedly involving the idea of supporting local Hizb-e-Islami 

factions in Nerkh district, and possibly other areas, against the Taliban in a war that had been 

going on between the two factions for the past two years.79 In 2010 and 2011, skirmishes broke 

out between the two sides, which observers believed had been supported by the provincial 

government and the U.S. military (Tabee 2011).80 By late 2012, the suggested alternative to 

the ALP had failed to materialize, possibly because of U.S. objections and the unwillingness of 

key Northern Alliance power holders in Kabul to empower their historic rival in the process 

of fighting the Taliban. More important, the strategy of building up the ANA and ANP, as 

advocated by Karzai, would likely have been undermined by relying on groups like Hizb-eIslami to defeat the insurgency.81

Because the Taliban 

insurgency remained strong 

in most parts of Wardak and 

the government could not 

guarantee sufficient security, 

people generally feared for 

their lives and avoided a 

controversial program like 

the ALP.
Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan

USIP.ORG 23

In summary, the difficulty of reforming and expanding the ALP to the southern districts 

in Wardak finally convinced local officials and SOFs to try a different approach. This was the 

clearest indication of the failure of the strategy to use a government-backed militia to bring 

about security in a contested environment.

Meanwhile, Fidai had become increasingly scathing in his criticism of U.S. military strategy in Wardak, especially over the question of transitioning security responsibilities to Afghan 

forces, which he claimed was irresponsible because the Afghan forces were not ready, and for 

its overreliance on the ALP (Tolo News 2012). As early as February 2012, a month after the 

U.S. military started transitioning security responsibilities to Afghan forces in Wardak, Fidai 

aired his views publicly, describing Wardak as a “laboratory for coalition forces” and criticizing 

U.S. plans to transition security responsibilities to poorly trained and poorly equipped Afghan 

forces in Wardak (Sieff 2012).

The failure of the ALP in Wardak in the summer of 2012 and the purported plans to 

arm local anti-Taliban factions perhaps indicated a shift away from McChrystal’s populationcentric counterinsurgency, which claimed to protect the population against insurgents, and 

toward a new strategy of exclusively fighting America’s enemies through targeted killings by 

SOFs and the CIA’s counterterrorism pursuit teams, as well as working with local proxy forces 

like Hizb-e-Islami as part of an attempt to mobilize the population for offensive operations 

against insurgents. This shift, in turn, may be understood as part of the strategy for extracting Western forces from Afghanistan by leaving behind a rural paramilitary force to hold the 

ground and fight the insurgency, rather than prioritizing the more demanding task of building 

regular forces to do so instead.

However, these plans were partly thrown into disarray when, in late February 2013, allegations of abduction, torture, and extrajudicial killings by SOFs and Afghan units associated 

with them in Wardak emerged, prompting Karzai to order all SOFs out of Wardak within 

two weeks (Rosenberg 2013a, 2013b; Welch and Shalizi 2013). Provincial authorities claimed 

that around seven hundred families had been displaced as a result of insecurity created by the 

abusive actions of SOFs and their Afghan proxies.82 The incidents in Nerkh and Maidanshahr 

districts indicate that the problem of militias in Wardak extends well beyond the ALP program.83 One implication of restrictions placed on SOFs as a result of these incidents is that 

without their presence in villages, support to and further development of the ALP has become 

difficult. Moreover, it can be expected that the risks to local villagers who participated in the 

ALP will increase as foreign forces are pulled out.

One interpretation of events is that Hizb-e-Islami-affiliated politicians close to Karzai, in 

an alliance of convenience with local power brokers, manipulated popular sentiments to persuade Karzai to evict SOFs from Wardak, especially Nerkh district, where Hizb-e-Islami and 

the Taliban had been involved in a prolonged power struggle. The aim of such an intervention 

would have been to protect Hizb-e-Islami from U.S. military action to safeguard its military 

capabilities against the Taliban.84 Meanwhile, allowing Hizb-e-Islami some breathing space 

while the government sought to reach a peace settlement with the Taliban could also be a key 

reason political pressure on SOFs increased during this period. By March 10, when Karzai’s 

deadline for pullout came into effect, SOFs had not withdrawn from Wardak. In response, the 

government mobilized the Ulema Council, the country’s highest clerical body, to issue a statement calling on the U.S. government to respect Afghan sovereignty and implement Karzai’s 

decree without further delay.85 However, a day later, media reports indicated that it looked 

likely that a compromise solution was on the table, with the government allowing SOFs to 
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stay in Wardak in exchange for a U.S. agreement to hand over control of the Bagram detention 

facility (Shalizi 2013). Finally, on March 20, reports indicated that the U.S. military had agreed 

to start the withdrawal of its SOFs, first from Nerkh district and later from other parts of the 

province (BBC 2013). In their place, the government deployed Afghan special forces to work 

alongside regular Afghan army units to ensure security in Nerkh (Dozier 2013).

Impact of AP3 and ALP

The impacts of the AP3 and the ALP were mixed. Security along roads from the provincial 

capital of Maidanshahr to district centers like Jalrez and Nerkh, previously considered too risky, 

had seen visible improvement from 2009 onward. Villagers and government officials started 

traveling more frequently to these two districts. The Nerkh district administration returned to 

its compound in the district center after months of operating from a rented shop in Maidanshahr. When, in 2008, security had deteriorated in Nerkh and travel to the district center was 

not possible, the Nerkh district was relocated to the Maidanshahr bazaar. In 2009, amid tight 

security, the governor along with members of his administration took a symbolic walk from the 

provincial capital to the Jalrez district center. The return of the district administration to Nerkh 

and the symbolic walk showcased some of the improvements in security along the roads.

In Sayedabad district, security incidents dropped noticeably in 2012, although the majority 

of the insurgent attacks in Wardak continued to occur in Sayedabad, through which the highway passes. More generally, insurgent attacks nationwide declined by more than 25 percent in 

2012. However, declining attacks do not necessarily translate into improved security for the 

population, given that most attacks occurred on ISAF troops and strategic highways. It could 

also mean that foreign forces leaving rural villages meant fewer targets. Afghan forces shouldering most of the responsibility for fighting insurgents certainly meant that their casualties 

soared in 2012 and 2013. In December 2012, the Afghan ministry of defense reported very 

high casualty figures of army and police personnel: about three hundred ANA and ANP per 

month, an average of 110 soldiers and 200 policemen (Associated Press 2012). This is on top of 

an annual attrition rate of 25 percent for the ANP and close to 30 percent for the ANA (Planty 

and Perito 2013, 5; Owen 2013). In February 2013, it was revealed that the U.S. military had 

suffered no casualties in a month, yet the war continued unabated, and Afghan civilians and 

security forces were its primary victims (Bengali 2013).86

Measuring the success of the ALP from a narrow security perspective may be possible, 

but the governance and development outcomes are much harder to assess. The empowering 

of abusive commanders and rival factions and human rights abuses committed by some ALP 

units have intensified concerns about the long-term impact of militias and undermined the 

program’s main intent—to increase the population’s trust in the government, expand government authority in insecure areas—where the Taliban offer a repressive but more predictable 

order—and to improve governance and development outcomes. Reports of extortion by AP3 

members have also been documented along the Maidanshahr-Jalrez road, where Hazara 

members of the AP3 repeatedly harassed Pashtun travelers.87 Although in public most government officials put on a brave face, in private discussions, provincial council members often 

reminded visiting dignitaries from Kabul and the governor of Wardak about the dozens of 

cases of murder and extortion involving AP3 and ALP members and the obstacles faced by 

the families of victims and the provincial military prosecutor in prosecuting the perpetrators. 

They argued that unless the government applied the rule of law and arrested these individuals, 
Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan

USIP.ORG 25

the local population would be unlikely to change its negative views about government-backed 

militias in Wardak.88

Despite improved security along the roads, most AP3 units in the vicinity of Maidanshahr 

and Nerkh remained particularly vulnerable to insurgent attacks. The AP3, like the ALP later 

on, acted as a magnet for insurgent attacks. Casualty figures attest to this: One AP3 commander in Nerkh lost more than half of his 150 men to insurgent attacks in less than a year.89

The strategically vital Kabul-Kandahar highway remained insecure for most of the period. Although in 2012 insurgent attacks in Sayedabad decreased overall by 35 percent, 90 percent of 

all attacks in Wardak were concentrated in Sayedabad, along the Kabul-Kandahar highway.90

By design, the AP3 and ALP were not trained or equipped to seriously weaken the insurgency, 

and in that sense, the overall impact on security was limited. It would take many more conventional Afghan and U.S. forces as well as SOFs and night raids targeting key commanders 

to achieve a shift in the security environment during the period studied. Even that was no 

guarantee of success. On its own, the ALP has limited strategic value; it is too small and in 

proportion to the ANSF has suffered greater casualties: five hundred as of early 2013, twice 

as many as the ANA and ANP. It remains highly dependent on SOFs and ANSF support to 

remain effective.

The warning by the U.S. military that if SOFs working with the ALP are pulled from insecure villages where the ALP is deployed, they could fall into the hands of insurgents—with 

serious consequence for villagers who have participated in the program—is a tacit admission of 

its vulnerability (Hodge 2013). It also suggests that after a decade of fighting and an increase 

of thousands of U.S. troops as well as the expansion of the ALP to 136 districts and billions of 

dollars spent on training Afghan security forces, the security situation in much of the country 

remains extremely tenuous. The ISAF nevertheless claimed in late 2012 that 80 percent of the 

Afghan population lived in secure areas.91 Such claims were challenged by reported abuses 

in late 2012 and early 2013 by SOFs in Nerkh and Maidanshahr districts. Alleged victims 

included young children, women, elders, government workers, doctors, nurses, and school and 

university students.92 Neither the Afghan government nor the ISAF identified which armed 

group or groups had perpetrated the abuses. Perhaps the lack of attribution of responsibility in 

this case was intentional, because off the books and unaccountable militias provide plausible 

deniability to those who rely on them. In other words, by outsourcing violence and repression, 

states can reduce international and domestic legal and political liability. Therefore, reports in 

early 2013 about the long-standing roles of the CIA and SOFs in arming and using Afghan 

paramilitary units for counterterrorism missions intensified concerns about the post-2014 

presence of U.S. intelligence and military assets in Afghanistan (Clark 2013).

Baghlan

Baghlan province lies 250 kilometers from Kabul along the north-south axis connecting both 

sides of the Hindu Kush. Its fertile valleys and strategic roads link Kabul to northern Afghanistan. The province has fifteen districts; the provincial capital is in Puli Khumri. It borders Kunduz and Takhar in the north, Parwan and Panjshir in the south, and Bamyan and Samangan in 

the west. It has an ethnically mixed population of about 741,690, a substantial number of whom 

are Pashtun settlers from southern and eastern Afghanistan who arrived there toward the end of 

the nineteenth century.93 Its main source of wealth is agriculture, boosted by the water sources of 

the Baghlan-Kunduz river system and the proximity to markets in Balkh and Kabul. Baghlan’s 
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energy plants and modest industrial enterprises—notably the Ghori cement factory, the sugar 

mill, hydropower plants, and coal mines—make it an important industrial zone.

With the fall of the Taliban, Jamiat-linked mujahideen commanders from Andarab district 

returned to power in Baghlan.94 Although the former rulers of Baghlan, the Ismaili clan of 

Sayed Mansoor Naderi, briefly captured power in the confusion surrounding the fall of Taliban, 

his forces were quickly driven out of Puli Khumri by a coalition of Jamiat and Hizb-e-Islami 

commanders. The Andarabi commanders at the head of this coalition occupied most of the 

powerful positions in the local administration, especially in the security sector. As head of the 

Highway Police in 2003, General Khalil Andarabi awarded two-thirds of all senior positions 

in the Highway Police to his supporters from Andarab, 90 percent of whom were Tajik, and 

only one Pashtun (U.S. Embassy Kabul 2005). During Mir Alam’s, and later Kabir Andarabi’s, 

tenure as provincial police chief—in 2005 and 2009, respectively—the police were primarily drawn from Jamiat supporters.95 According to Alam Jan, the total ANP force in Baghlan 

numbered some eighteen hundred policemen.96 In 2009, the provincial ANP headquarters, the 

Komandani, was staffed by forty-six senior officers, six of whom were junior Pashtun officers.97 

To overcome dominance by one faction, the central government appointed General Abdul 

Rahman Rahimi, a professional Pashtun officer, as police chief in Baghlan in early 2010. He 

replaced Kabir Andarabi, and though his appointment signaled the change of leadership at the 

top, the rank and file of provincial police force remained loyal to Mustafa and Kabir Andarabi.98

The domination of the post-2001 provincial security architecture by Northern Alliance 

factions reversed the fortunes of local power brokers who had benefited from Taliban rule 

between 1997 and 2001. Most of these Pashtun commanders were cut off from government 

patronage and protection. Northern Alliance commanders with links to power brokers in Kabul folded their militias into the local security structure and avoided the UN-sponsored DDR 

program, but many Pashtuns were targeted, accused of having Taliban or al-Qaeda sympathies 

(HRW 2002). The Andarabi-dominated police force disarmed Pashtuns they suspected of 

previous ties to the Taliban or otherwise perceived as a threat to their power.99 Although a 

few Pashtun commanders such as Amir Gul joined Jamiat commanders in power, others were 

hunted down by the security forces in the name of al-Qaeda and Taliban, thus driving them 

into the arms of the Taliban insurgency.

With the rise to power of Jamiat factions, rival groups in the central government have 

tried to weaken their power by appointing governors and police chiefs with links to Hizb-eIslami factions from the local Pashtun community or trusted political allies from Kabul.100 In 

the last decade, Baghlan has had more governors (by one count more than ten in nine years) 

than any other province in the country. The rapid turnover indicates the difficulty faced by the 

central government in maintaining political stability in the province. Vice President Fahim 

maintained links to Mustafa and Rasoul Andarabi, and Karzai relied on the support of former 

Hizb-e-Islami commanders such as Amir Gul, Mullah Alam, and Alam Jan to check the 

power of Tajik strongmen.101 Centrally appointed governors often found it difficult to work 

with the provincial police chief and local strongmen from Jamiat factions.

On more than one occasion, local demonstrations organized by Jamiat strongmen forced 

Kabul-appointed governors from office, notably the pro-Pashtun former military commander 

of Hizb-e-Islami in Balkh and the current governor of Paktia, Juma Khan Hamdard.102 During his brief governorship of Baghlan in 2005, Hamdard tried to rally disaffected Hizb-eIslami supporters against Tajik strongmen from Andarab. He also played a key role in regional 

politics. For more than a decade, Juma Khan has stood in opposition to the governor of Balkh, 

In the last decade, Baghlan 

has had more governors 

than any other province 

in the country. The rapid 

turnover indicates the 

difficulty faced by the 

central government in 

maintaining political 

stability in the province. 
Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan

USIP.ORG 27

Atta Mohammad Noor, who emerged as the north’s undisputed strongman with an active 

influence in Baghlan and Kunduz. Atta has been accused of fanning insecurity and arming 

local militias to disrupt elections in Pashtun areas and undermine the incumbent’s electoral 

chances and boost his rival Abdullah, a political ally of Atta.103 However, the Andarabi clan is 

not a monolith. Political fragmentation among Andarabi factions has resulted in the creation 

of several armed factions, some loyal to Mustafa and Rasoul Andarabi, who rely on them 

to undermine their rivals during elections and to exert control over licit and illicit economic 

activities. Other factions are loyal to General Kabir Andarabi. They have resorted to highway 

robbery, setting up roadblocks and taxing traffic and other criminal activities while fearing no 

retribution. The insurgency is therefore not the only source of instability in the province.

The Insurgency

The Taliban’s penetration into Baghlan was facilitated by the political marginalization and 

persecution of local Pashtuns, who saw the insurgency as a possible source of protection and 

resources. Disgruntled Hizb-e-Islami followers allied with the Taliban and facilitated their 

penetration into key Hizb-dominated areas of Baghlan.104 However, in provinces dominated 

by non-Pashtuns, as in Baghlan, the Taliban worked with the clergy to transcend ethnic divisions rather than solely championing the cause of disaffected Pashtuns.105 The rerouting of 

NATO supplies through northern Afghanistan after attacks on NATO convoys increased in 

Pakistan enhanced the strategic significance of Baghlan for both NATO and the insurgents, 

resulting in increased Taliban and Hizb-e-Islami military operations in Dand-e-Shahabuddin 

and Dand-e-Ghori areas of Puli Khumri aimed at disrupting ISAF supply lines.

Taliban penetration began in the districts of Nahrin, Khost-wa-Fering, and Andarab as 

early as 2008, but the first serious signs of insecurity appeared in the spring of 2009 in Puli Khumri and Baghlan-e-Jadid. In Puli Khumri, Dahan-e-Ghori, and Baghlan-e-Jadid, the Taliban relied on local Hizb-e-Islami commanders to gain a foothold. The situation deteriorated 

further in the lead-up to the August presidential elections. For example, in Dand-e-Ghori area 

of Puli Khumri, Taliban and Hizb-e-Islami fighters attacked police patrols and captured police 

vehicles and ammunition without much resistance.106 Local power brokers such as Mullah 

Alam believed the attacks against police convoys and capture of vehicles and weapons were 

orchestrated by those aligned with Atta Mohammed Noor, who wished to create insecurity so 

voting could not take place in Pashtun areas and thereby hurt Karzai’s chances of reelection.107

Security continued to deteriorate after the elections. In November 2009, the Taliban felt confident enough to try a military takeover of Baghlan-e-Jadid. Hundreds of Taliban fighters 

stormed the district center and the home of the district governor in a conventional-style military attack. The attack was repulsed after the district governor, Amir Gul, asked his former 

Hizb-e-Islami commanders for help against the Taliban. A jihadi militia of more than four 

hundred, many having successfully avoided the UN-supported DDR program, fought pitched 

battles lasting for days before the government regained control of the district.108 According to 

Abdul Rahman Rahimi—the police chief of Baghlan from April 2010 to September 2011—in 

the spring of 2009, the Taliban’s influence had reached the center of Puli Khumri. They regularly infiltrated the city at night and launched random attacks on government posts and then 

withdrew without much resistance.

In 2010, newly arrived surge troops, including U.S. special operations forces, showed growing NATO concerns for the situation in the north. Although Baghlan was of strategic importance to NATO supplies, the ISAF presence in the province had been negligible until spring 

The Taliban’s penetration 

into Baghlan was 

facilitated by the political 

marginalization and 

persecution of local 

Pashtuns, who saw the 

insurgency as a possible 

source of protection and 

resources.
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28 USIP.ORG

2010 when a 126-man German Quick Reaction Force (QRF) was deployed (Demmer 2010). 

Earlier, in 2006, a small contingent of Hungarian military had taken over the PRT in Baghlan, 

but it lacked both the political will and the financial and military resources to aggressively 

police large parts of the province or take on the Taliban.109 Furthermore, the limited number of 

Afghan regular forces made it easier for the Taliban to spread its influence unchallenged.110 In 

the run-up to the August 2009 presidential elections, the provincial police, made up of a coterie 

of local militias belonging to Jamiat commanders Mustafa and Kabir Andarabi, were used in 

an attempt to stabilize the situation. But the police chief, Abdul Rahman Rahimi, described 

the local force as ill disciplined, poorly led, in poor fighting spirit, and under the influence of 

local strongmen.111

The Rise of Arbaki Militias

Puli Khumri was mostly threatened from Dand-e-Ghori and Dand-e-Shahabuddin areas, 

located a few kilometers to the north of the provincial capital, along the Baghlan-Kunduz and 

Baghlan-Mazar highways. The so-called arbaki112 militias in Baghlan grew out of a specific 

security context, initially involving a small band of local fighters who adopted the Hizb-eIslami banner to attract resources.113 Although they originally cooperated with the Taliban, after making unsuccessful overtures to the local administration, the Taliban, suspecting them of 

collaboration with the government, launched a military operation in March 2010 and defeated 

the Hizb-e-Islami fighters in Dand-e-Shahabuddin. Afterward, around seventy fighters surrendered to the government. They were housed in an NDS compound in Puli Khumri, and 

after a few months, small groups began to return to their villages.114

On returning to their villages, the self-styled arbaki militias, numbering around forty, lacked 

proper training and were ill equipped to face off against a better-armed Taliban.115 Only a few 

of them got back their arms from the NDS. The Taliban then launched a second and much 

larger attack in mid-September against Sher and his band of arbaki militias.116 The battle of 

Shahabuddin lasted for three days and ended in Sher’s death by an ISAF air strike, which was 

called in to disperse an estimated Taliban force of sixty fighters.117 The battle also highlighted 

the overdependence of lightly armed government-backed militias on regular or special forces, be 

they government or ISAF, when they come under insurgent attack.118 After Sher’s death, Nurul Haq took over as arbaki commander and established his base at Gaji, a small distance from 

the spot where the battle had occurred.119 The arbaki militias emerged around the same time as 

NATO supplies started coming through Baghlan and Kunduz. These steps led to an improvement in security as a force of around seven hundred local arbaki was gradually built up and 

deployed by the local administration in Dand-e-Shahabuddin, Dand-e-Ghori, and Baghlane-Markazi.120 Initially, the arbaki mostly relied on whatever resources local villagers were willing to provide, but over time, they resorted to more coercive tactics to extract resources, including forced taxation of farmers. Otherwise, they lacked regular government support, which is 

one explanation for why such militias regularly abused the local population and committed 

human rights abuses.121 The German military knew that the arbaki forces they were working 

with regularly engaged in criminal activities. According to a Spiegel report, “None of these men 

are angels. Until recently, Sher and his men used brutal methods, including the threat of slicing off ears, noses and heads, to exact protection money from their victims” (Demmer 2010).

They appeared to play a relatively limited role in military operations against Taliban insurgents in Puli Khumri. Most of the fighting was actually done by regular troops from the government and ISAF. The Afghan police and army and the SOFs played a far more important 
Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan

USIP.ORG 29

role in clearing central and northern Baghlan from the Taliban. Rahimi claimed that his first 

act after taking over as police chief in the spring of 2010 was to increase the number of police 

check points in the city where the Taliban had influence and that he gradually expanded the 

security cordon out to Dand-e-Shahabuddin and Dand-e-Ghori. However, because of the 

shortage of police, especially from among the Pashtun community, and general distrust of a 

factionalized police force to hold territory and set up check points in Pashtun-dominated areas, 

the government inevitably relied on local fighters to hold key areas around Puli Khumri.122

Following Sher’s death, Nurul Haq emerged as a prominent arbaki commander in Puli 

Khumri, especially after he established links with recently arrived SOFs. Embedded SOFs 

built new bases and began joint operations with arbaki militias. The arbaki could now get access to regular pay and supplies and, most important, get SOFs’ military backing if attacked. 

The relationship with SOFs made Nurul Haq a formidable figure in Baghlan politics. After 

the addition of the coercive power of SOFs and the spread of arbaki militia in key areas, the 

security situation saw gradual improvements. In 2009 and 2010, the road to Kunduz and Mazar was “impossible to travel on.” 123 However, both roads later became safe enough for travel, 

including at night in late 2011 and again in the spring and summer of 2012. Travel within Puli 

Khumri and to former insurgent strongholds in Dand-e-Shahabuddin and Dand-e-Ghori 

and Dahana-e-Ghori remained safe during the day. In fact, most fighting in Baghlan ended 

after the 2009 presidential and 2010 parliamentary elections. A similar pattern of conflict 

escalation seems very likely as the 2014 elections approach.124

From Arbaki to ALP

As noted, Pashtuns switched to the government side when the local balance of power changed, 

particularly after the pressure from SOFs on insurgents increased in late 2010 and early 2011. 

Many joined the government’s peace and reintegration program. The first group to benefit 

from the program was purported to be made up of Hizb-e-Islami fighters under Sher.125 Those 

arbaki fighters who survived the battle of Shahabuddin were later rebranded as ALP when the 

program was first established in February 2011 in Dand-e-Shahabuddin. Other insurgents 

joined the ALP later on. Newly hired ALP members interviewed in Puli Khumri in June 2012 

admitted to being, until recently, with the Taliban. They displayed open loyalty to the Taliban 

when asked whether they would ever side with Americans to fight the Taliban. They dismissed 

suggestions about any possible role given to local shuras or the provincial council—which is 

dominated by Rasoul Mohsini, the powerful former Jamiat-e-Islami commander from Andarab and a strong critic of the ALP—in recruiting new ALP members in Puli Khumri. Most 

of them had bypassed any vetting process and directly entered the ALP along with their commanders after formally surrendering to the government, following the example of Sher’s Hizbe-Islami fighters forming an arbaki unit.

After Nurul Haq and his arbaki fighters became the first recruits to join the ALP without 

vetting or approval from either elders or local shuras or the provincial council, the ALP program was expanded to Dand-e-Ghori in June–July 2011 and subsequently to Baghlan-e-Jadid 

and Dahana-e-Ghori districts. In the official MOI structure, the ALP covers three districts 

in Baghlan: Puli Khumri (Dand-e-Shahabuddin and Dand-e-Ghori), Baghlan-e-Jadid, and 

Danhana-e-Ghori. All three districts have majority Pashtun populations. Tajik-dominated 

districts like Andarab and Khinjan, which largely remained free of Taliban insurgency, have 

not been allotted ALP units, despite the presence of many illegal armed groups and insecurity. 

According to SOFs, the ALP numbered 325 in Puli Khumri126 and 300 each in the other two 
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30 USIP.ORG

districts, for a total force of 900 in Baghlan.127 When asked about the number of ALP in Puli 

Khumri and Dahan-e-Ghori, Nurul Haq reported 425 in Puli Khumri and 300 in Dahana-eGhori. He claimed that the 725 ALP recruits commanded by 33 commanders in both districts 

reported to him, though he admitted he was no longer officially an ALP commander.128 By this 

time, the ALP was part of a much larger security architecture in Baghlan that included 2,500 

ANP and 1,200 ANA along with the 900 ALP.

According to the head of the ASOP shura in Baghlan, the ALP was established in Dande-Ghori about a year after the battle of Shahabuddin. A local shura, which was supposed to vet 

ALP recruits in Dand-e-Ghori, was established months later and played no meaningful role 

in selection. The arbaki fighters were simply given a new ALP label. Mullah Alam, a former 

Hizb-e-Islami commander, reportedly used his own shura-e-sulh-wa-musharikat-e-mili, a local development shura, to rubber-stamp decisions regarding the ALP. The recruitment and 

vetting papers of some recruits were signed by ASOP shura and others by a special committee 

in the provincial council, where Rasoul Mohsini tried to oppose the process. The ALP recruitment procedure was controversial in that provincial authorities felt that the U.S. forces took 

the lead in these decisions and left little room for the input of local authorities. The head of the 

provincial council, Rasoul Mohsini, was a strong opponent of the ALP and the role of SOFs, 

which according to him empowered men like Nurul Haq and undermined the authority of the 

provincial police, which were dominated by his Andarabi clan.129 The Andarabis view the ALP 

as a Pashtun militia and a threat to their local power base. In this province, therefore, the ALP 

dynamic has intensified Tajik-Pashtun power struggles.130

Occasional armed rivalries between the ALP and ANP in Baghlan undermined the rationale for the program as a supplementary force to the ANSF. Although relations have improved since U.S. SOFs partly ceded control over the ALP to the provincial police chief, 

enabling him to subordinate the ALP to his command, rivalries between the two forces in 

the past have been serious. During one incident in late September 2011, an ALP unit backed 

by SOFs launched a full-scale attack against a QRF unit of the ANP in the center of Puli 

Khumri. The armed confrontation erupted after the ANP unit shot and killed an ALP member.131 It quickly escalated, and when U.S. forces came under fire, a NATO air strike was called 

against the QRF unit. The air strike was called off at the last minute following direct intervention by a top-ranking police official in the northern region. The action narrowly avoided 

a massacre of police at the hands of their ALP subordinates and their SOF mentors. After 

the incident, Nurul Haq and his ALP commanders threatened an armed attack against the 

Andarabis in Puli Khumri. Pashtun politicians, notably Mullah Alam and Alam Jan, called 

for more patience and tried to resolve the issue without resorting to force. Although the Pashtuns insisted on the arrest and prosecution of commander Ghani, the head of the QRF unit, 

the case was eventually settled by the decision of a jirga and an award of 3.5 million Afghanis 

to the family of the bereaved. Major power brokers in the north—notably General Baba Jan, 

the head of the ANP in the north (Pamir 303 regional command), and Governor Atta and 

Vice President Fahim Qasim—intervened in support of the Andarabis. The Pashtuns were 

told that they should not insist on Ghani’s arrest and criminal prosecution and were instead 

advised to settle for less.132

Incidents like this reflect and accentuate lines of conflict. When Nurul Haq was asked 

whether he would turn his weapon in and demobilize when the ALP program ended, he 

responded that he would do so if the elders made that decision.133 He added, however, that “as 

long as the government in Pul-i-Khumri remains the way it is now—an Andarabi organiza-
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USIP.ORG 31

tion—we are going to protect ourselves however we can” (Mogelson 2011). As far as Nurul 

Haq is concerned, the state of war between the Pashtuns and Tajiks in Baghlan is perpetual, 

even though not all Pashtuns see the conflict in such terms. Other Pashtun power brokers, such 

as Mullah Alam and Alam Jan, have resisted Nurul Haq’s efforts by trying to act as brokers 

and mediators because they calculate that armed conflict with Andarabis would strengthen 

Nurul Haq and undermine their position in the local power setup. Pashtun power brokers who 

have benefited from the ALP, however, view it as a chance to regain power when the regular 

police and security sector remain in the hands of Andarabi Tajiks. The ALP has become an 

instrument of political aspirations for those Pashtuns, whose interests overlap with factions in 

the central government that wish to curtail the power of the Andarabi elite. The ostensible aim 

of the ALP to connect the population in insecure areas to the provincial government and enhance government legitimacy is secondary to the political game of ethnically aligned patronage 

politics. To some extent, all sides in this game have an interest in durable disorder. As long as 

the politics of difference and the notion of the hostile “other” are kept alive and struggles over 

power and resources continue, entrepreneurs of violence and politicians on both sides can be 

sure of the support of their fellow ethnics.

The U.S. SOFs shared the view of most Pashtuns that the dominance of the security sector by the Tajik-Jamiat faction was illegitimate. By siding with the Pashtuns and isolating the 

process from political interference by the dominant power brokers from Jamiat, the U.S. military made the ALP program in Baghlan even more controversial.134 One paradoxical outcome 

of the U.S. military’s role in the formation and support to the ALP in Baghlan has been the 

reinforcement of two separate but interconnected governing orders, one for Tajiks and one 

for Pashtuns. Once this was acknowledged, the U.S. military began working on bridging the 

divide between the two sets of power holders in Puli Khumri and Dand-e-Shahabuddin—the 

former in the control of the ANP, and the regular police and the latter controlled by ALP 

forces.135 Few Afghan politicians, however, are convinced by the SOF commander’s efforts in 

this direction. Alam Jan, deputy head of the provincial council, dismissed claims that the U.S. 

military’s presence in Baghlan had resulted in progress in all three aspects of the VSO-ALP 

initiative—namely, security, governance, and development. He stressed that the only positive 

outcome of the U.S. forces’ presence in Baghlan was in preventing ALP militias from turning 

to chur-au-chapawul, or open banditry, and in preventing armed hostilities from erupting between the ANP and ALP. The Americans did so largely by wedging themselves between the 

two forces, which raises the question of what will happen when they are eventually withdrawn. 

Although in public the former governor of Baghlan, Munshi Majid, supported the ALP, in 

private, he had a poor view of Nurul Haq, the role of U.S. special forces, and the ALP, whose 

members he considered no better than criminals and murderers.136

Although the ALP might have a role to play in protecting local villages against Taliban 

attacks or preventing abuses by Jamiat-dominated government security forces, they have also 

engaged in abuses against civilians, including beatings, murder, land grabbing, rape, and forced 

taxation. The predominantly Pashtun ALP in Baghlan, for example, has a record of harming 

and abusing the Pashtun communities it is purportedly protecting. According to a local elder, 

the ALP played a role in improving security, illustrated by the fact that he could drive to Dande-Ghori, Shahabuddin, and Dahana-e-Ghori areas, which were off limits before the establishment of the arbaki and ALP. But he also pointed out that the ALP was mostly made of former 

Hizb and Taliban fighters—only the labels had changed.137 This improvement in security is 

independent of, and even despite, the various police formations.

By siding with the 

Pashtuns and isolating 

the process from political 

interference by the 

dominant power brokers 

from Jamiat, the U.S. 

military made the ALP 

program in Baghlan even 

more controversial.
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32 USIP.ORG

Many other illegal armed groups are in the province, particularly in Andarab and Nahrin districts. The ALP by comparison has less than one thousand men, a lightly armed force 

scattered over three districts. As a local elder lamented, although everyone complained about 

the ALP, no one was willing to discuss the much bigger problem of illegal armed groups in 

Baghlan.138 The biggest threat to public security and state power may be from the so-called 

illegal armed groups, who have had a continued presence in the local security architecture and 

enjoy the protection of powerful regional and Kabul-based strongmen. Intra- and intergroup 

struggles are likely to intensify ahead of the NATO withdrawal and upcoming elections. This 

conflict will also create openings for the return of the Taliban.

Kunduz

Kunduz province borders Tajikistan in the north and the provinces of Takhar in the east, 

Baghlan in the south, and Balkh in the west. Its ethnically mixed population, the result of 

successive immigration waves, is estimated to number some 820,000 people. The province is 

composed of seven districts.139 It is an economically and strategically important region. Before 

the war erupted in 1979, it was part of the wider region of Qataghan—present-day Takhar, 

Kunduz, and Baghlan provinces—and was a major agricultural and industrial zone. Kunduz 

city, in spite of the destruction of the war, remains a major population center and economic hub 

and is strategically important given its location on the northern supply route for NATO forces.

With the emergence of a new transitional authority in Kabul after 2001 was dominated 

by Northern Alliance figures, jihadi-era commanders returned to power in Kunduz, including 

Mir Alam, from Jamiat. As a commander of the Northern Alliance army’s 54th division, Mir 

Alam established himself in the provincial capital and his former stronghold of Khanabad. 

The political bargain struck between Jamiat and Junbish involved divvying up the rest of the 

province to local commanders with ostensible loyalty to one of the two parties.140

Pashtuns were largely excluded from the local political settlement, and the channeling of 

patronage in the form of resources and government positions reflected a new power balance 

dominated by Jamiat commanders. Jihadi factions folded their militias into local security 

structures, and although UN-supported DDR programs were launched, they did not significantly alter the coercive power of local commanders like Mir Alam.141 For example, by 

the end of the decade, an estimated forty-five hundred to ten thousand militias remained 

throughout the province, and some three thousand to four thousand militiamen in Khanabad 

district alone. A German-led PRT became the center for security sector reform and reconstruction efforts, but German troops maintained a passive role, which involved working with 

commander power structures rather than challenging them. In spite of international efforts to 

build up the regular security and police forces, the ANP has maintained a total force of some 

seventeen hundred personnel in Kunduz.142

The Insurgency

From the mid-2000s onward, the Taliban insurgency in the south intensified and over time 

spread beyond the Pashtun heartlands. By 2009, the Taliban presence in Kunduz had grown, 

partly because of the increased strategic importance of the city with the rerouting of NATO 

supplies through northern Afghanistan. The Taliban expanded its presence in the north by exploiting Pashtun feelings of marginalization and by manipulating local conflicts. In the spring 

of 2009, Kunduz experienced a wave of Taliban violence, and insurgents established a presThe Taliban expanded 

its presence in the north 

by exploiting Pashtun 

feelings of marginalization 

and by manipulating local 

conflicts.
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USIP.ORG 33

ence in Chahardara, from which they expanded military operations to Aliabad, Imam Sahib, 

Dasht-e-Archi, and central Kunduz, all of which have a significant Pashtun presence.

The Emergence of Arbaki Militias

By the summer of 2009, the provincial authorities had become sufficiently alarmed by the Taliban penetration to request additional police and army personnel, partly because German-led 

ISAF forces were reluctant to fight the Taliban. When the central government ignored the 

request, the provincial governor, engineer Mohammad Omar, asked for Kunduz to be included as part of the APPF, which at the time was being piloted in Wardak province. When 

this request was refused, the governor began arming local jihadi commanders, many of whom 

had fought the Taliban in 2001, to contain the insurgency and improve security. This was a 

local initiative and was not pushed by the Afghan MOI or U.S. forces. In fact, Karzai and 

his minister of defense were opposed to the initiative, although the minister of interior at the 

time, Haneef Atmar, who had supported the AP3 initiative in Wardak, was more agnostic 

about militias and prepared to support them as long as they remained under central government control. The German military command suggested sending 2,500 additional police to 

Kunduz instead of arming local militias, which they thought risked undermining the formal 

security structures and reversing the modest progress made through the DDR and DIAG 

programs.

Events on the ground generated their own momentum, however. Local commanders took 

advantage of the fluid and insecure situation to reactivate their old networks. General Mohammad Daud, the NDS chief and brother-in-law of Mir Alam, the powerful Kunduz-based 

Jamiat commander, was put in charge of recruiting local commanders and their private militias. 

The NDS became a coordinating office for local militias, and Daud relied almost exclusively 

on Mir Alam to recruit local commanders loyal to himself. Government efforts to arm local 

commanders initially focused on Imam Sahib, Khanabad, and Qala-e-Zal districts. The Taliban stronghold of Chahardara was considered too insecure to initiate a local arbaki force. In 

Kunduz, the anti-Taliban militias were mainly drawn from Turkmen, Tajik, and Uzbek communities. Only a few Pashtun commanders in Khanabad, such as Mohammad Omar from 

Sayyaf ’s Itihad faction, set up arbaki militias. In Imam Sahib, the Uzbek Ibrahimi family, 

which controlled the district, played a key role in mobilizing local militias. In Qala-e-Zal, a 

former mujahideen commander, Nabi Gichi, was asked by the district governor to form local 

militias ahead of the August 2009 presidential elections.

With Mir Alam’s militia of some five hundred, in addition to his local allies fighting alongside government forces, the Taliban were driven out from most parts of Kunduz.143 As noted, 

the main effort in pushing back the Taliban from Kunduz is attributed to the arbaki forces, 

including Mir Alam’s, recruited by the then governor, Mohammad Omar. At this stage, the 

SOFs did not play a role because they did not arrive in Kunduz until late 2010. The local militias had a clear incentive to fight the Taliban because their power was directly threatened by 

the rise of the Taliban in the north. Mir Alam thus consolidated his position as the provincial 

strongman. The real blow to the Taliban’s control came in September 2010, in the lead-up to 

parliamentary elections, when a much larger effort was launched to clear the Taliban from 

Kunduz. On his arrival in September 2010, a month after Omar had been killed, Abdul Rahman Sayedkhaili, the new police chief, began to hand out cash to arbaki commanders to fight 

the Taliban. The interior minister, Besmillah Khan, reportedly provided $100,000 to Sayedkhaili to pay local commanders and buy off insurgents willing to switch sides.144 Before he 
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launched his offensive, Sayedkhaili delivered an ultimatum to local Taliban commanders to 

stop fighting and switch to the government’s side. Many insurgent commanders took up his 

offer and crossed over.

The situation was turned around less by fighting and more by bribing Taliban commanders 

to switch sides, which heavily depleted the ranks of the insurgency. Sayedkhaili’s efforts received a further boost when the ISAF deployed U.S. SOFs to Kunduz ahead of the September 

2010 parliamentary elections. The arrival of the SOFs coupled with Sayedkhaili’s campaign 

against the Taliban dramatically reduced the power of the Taliban and dislodged them from 

some of the most contested areas around central Kunduz, in particular the Gore Tepa area and 

in Imam Sahib, Dasht-e-Archi, and Chahardara.145 SOFs’ night raids and kill-capture operations also had a major military impact. By late 2010, Taliban commanders in Kunduz were 

under great pressure and had to constantly change their locations to avoid being targeted by 

SOFs. In January 2011, Sayedkhaili declared Kunduz cleansed of Taliban. Two months later, 

he was killed in a suicide attack.

After Sayedkhaili’s death, the funding from the MOI stopped, and Sayedkhaili’s successor 

could not continue the payment to hundreds of arbaki militias. This unsurprisingly led to predatory behavior from the militias. Many local militias resorted to extorting local farmers and 

traders and engaged in internal power struggles and turf battles. The government responded 

with disarmament efforts, but in 2011, only fifty-one people were disarmed. In August 2012, a 

second effort was made to disarm abusive commanders in Khanabad, but after a three-day operation, only twelve weapons were collected (Hewad 2012). Militia proliferation had reached 

such a level by April 2011 that German forces in Kunduz resorted to bringing some of them 

onto the ISAF’s payroll, using the U.S. military’s CERP funds. The incorporation of existing 

militias by the ISAF happened in parallel to SOFs’ efforts to establish the ALP. These militias were renamed the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Force and located mainly in 

Qala-e-Zal, Chahardara, and Aliabad districts. CIP was another ad hoc response to deal with 

problems that might have been anticipated. The program was implemented without any clear 

policy direction from the ISAF. The total CIP force was slightly over 500: 225 in Qala-e-Zal, 

150 in Chahardara, and 150 in Aliabad.146 However, the Germans’ policy of bringing local militias under the U.S. military’s patronage did not sit well with Karzai’s objective of centralizing 

the means of patronage. When Karzai learned about the initiative in late December 2011, he 

issued a decree disbanding CIP.147 In June 2012, SOFs informed the German PRT in Kunduz 

that the U.S. military had decided to stop payments to CIP units in Kunduz.148 In April 2013, 

a member of parliament from Qala-e-Zal confirmed the cessation of U.S. military payments 

to CIP units in the district. No longer paid, the CIP members “had gone back to what they 

were doing before they became CIP. They steal, collect ushr, and abuse civilians. Whereas a few 

years ago they drove the Taliban out and brought security, these days the arbaki militias have 

become a source of insecurity.”149

Arbaki’s Transition to ALP

The final incarnation of militias in Kunduz was the creation of the ALP program. Compared 

with other provinces, the ALP was implemented relatively late in Kunduz. The strategic rationale was to serve, alongside arbaki militias, as a holding force to maintain the gains that had 

been made against the Taliban insurgency. The first ALP tashkil (the formal staffing structure 

of government ministries) for central Kunduz was approved in November 2010. A month 

later, three more districts were added: Imam Sahib, Dasht-e-Archi, and Chahardara, each be-
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USIP.ORG 35

ing allotted three hundred ALP. The total ALP tashkil for Kunduz in June 2012 was 1,125. 

Khanabad, Aliabad, and Qala-e-Zal districts were left out of the tashkil.150

It appears that existing arbaki militias were promised inclusion in the ALP, which in turn 

prompted SOFs to delay ALP implementation.151 A number of consequences followed. It is 

possible that delays prompted police chief Sayedkhaili to mobilize local arbaki militias to retain 

the initiative against insurgents. The restrictions on arbaki militias probably led to the decision 

to establish CIP as a way of removing pressure on the ALP as well as accommodating a large 

number of arbaki militias, which could not be included in the ALP. On the other hand, senior 

provincial officials accused SOFs of violating ALP guidelines when they began implementing the ALP in central Kunduz. The deputy governor, a Jamiat loyalist, resigned from a joint 

commission with the U.S. forces in protest when he realized that the Americans had already 

recruited preselected armed groups but expected the provincial government to approve them, 

in clear violation of ALP procedure.152

Despite these initial delays, the implementation of the ALP went ahead. By September 

2011, 105 of 225 ALP recruits had been trained and deployed in central Kunduz and ALP 

recruitment in Imam Sahib had begun. By January 2012, the ALP in Dasht-e-Archi district 

was rolled out. In June 2012, the process had moved on to Chahardara district.153 As of June 

2012, the ALP had been completed in two of four districts: central Kunduz and Imam Sahib. 

The ALP focused on both Pashtun and non-Pashtun districts where the Taliban insurgency 

had been strongest. Because ALP forces were deployed after arbaki militias had done most of 

the fighting alongside SOFs, their role in direct combat was minimal, and security for the most 

part had improved. At this point, two very different kinds of local militia programs were going 

on in Kunduz: the ALP, which was officially approved by the Afghan government, and the 

CIP, which was run by ISAF but lacked central government sanction, even though in theory 

CIP units were subordinated to district police chiefs.

Arming Pashtuns through the ALP, as had happened in Baghlan province, was viewed 

with concern by Tajik-dominated Jamiat, who were determined to avoid such an outcome. 

As with the arbaki militias, the ALP in Kunduz was disproportionately captured by Tajik 

(mainly Jamiat) and Uzbek commanders, especially in central Kunduz, which is ethnically 

mixed. According to former interior minister Haneef Atmar, the ALP in Baghlan and Kunduz 

was hijacked by local power brokers because commanders rather than local elders and shuras 

became the channel for recruitment and selection of ALP members. Senior government officials, in particular Interior Minister Besmillah Khan, are believed to have used ALP resources 

to strengthen Jamiat’s jihadi networks.

In central Kunduz, for example, where the first ALP units were established in early 2011, 

all the ALP commanders were former jihadi and arbaki commanders linked to Mir Alam and 

Mohammad Omar, a Sayyaf loyalist and Itihad commander in Khanabad.154 Other prominent 

ALP commanders include Amir Shah, Aziz, Ghulam Ali, Juma Khan, Ishaq Nizami, and Ala 

Nazar, all of whom had fought the Taliban in 2009 and 2010 and maintained arbaki militias.155

Ala Nazar is an Uzbek jihadi commander, at one point disarmed under the DDR program. 

In mid-2012, he was in charge of an ALP unit of twenty-five to thirty men in Dam Shakh 

village in the Alchin area of central Kunduz. All of his men serving in the ALP unit are close 

relatives. In 2009, he was asked by the head of NDS to start a local arbaki militia to fight the 

Taliban. Discussions with Ala Nazar in June 2012 revealed that he was approached by SOFs 

in the summer of 2011 to join the ALP. He and his men were given three weeks’ training and 

then introduced to local elders as the new ALP unit in his village.156

The ALP in Baghlan and 

Kunduz was hijacked 

by local power brokers 

because commanders 

rather than local elders 

and shuras became the 

channel for recruitment 

and selection of ALP 

members.
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36 USIP.ORG

The ALP has also absorbed former insurgents, though sometimes with ambiguous effects, 

as illustrated by the case of Ishaq Nizami, a former Taliban commander and Sayyaf loyalist. 

After reconciling with the government, Nizami joined the ALP and emerged as a commander 

of five ALP units in the Tobrakash area of central Kunduz. He served as deputy to commander 

Hafiz Cherik. His men were involved in a highly publicized case of the rape of a Kuchi (Pashtun nomad) woman named Lal Bibi. Two years earlier, Nizami had been fighting alongside the 

Taliban and eventually joined the government when military pressure on the Taliban increased. 

Like many other Taliban commanders, Nizami emerged as a pro-government arbaki commander. Eventually, he found his way into the ALP when SOFs began the program in central 

Kunduz in early 2011. In June 2012, he was named as a suspect in Lal Bibi’s case. As ALP 

commander, he was invited to mediate between one of his subcommanders and the family of 

Lal Bibi. He ruled in favor of his deputy and arranged a forced marriage between the deputy 

and Lal Bibi.

Nizami’s subsequent trial and conviction in November 2012 was the result of Karzai’s 

direct intervention. Although a prominent jihadi leader and the provincial police chief, Samiullah Qatrah, tried to protect Nizami from prosecution, Karzai intervened after a public 

outcry and ordered Nizami’s and his cohorts’ arrest and disbanded the particular ALP unit in 

Tobrakash.157 The conviction of Nizami and his men for rape, rather than a settlement through 

baad,

158 also shows that when the government had the will to act, it also had the power to bring 

perpetrators to account. Nizami and his four accomplices were sentenced to sixteen years in 

prison for the crime.

These brief accounts of the ALP units under commanders Ala Nazar and Nizami reveal 

the extent to which the ALP program has been manipulated to serve divergent agendas. They 

point to a lack of transparency in recruitment, vetting, command, and control and suggest 

how the power of a host of armed groups—including so-called illegal armed groups, former 

insurgents, and proxy forces linked to U.S. SOFs—has been reinforced by the ALP program.

Local human rights activists following the case confirmed that the vetting of ALP recruits 

under Nizami had been done by Kunduz police without any community engagement. This 

appears to be the case for most other units. The provincial peace council159 is only involved if 

Taliban insurgents are being transitioned from the insurgency into the ALP.160 According to 

a prominent member of the provincial council, despite repeated objections from the Kunduz 

governor, deputy governor, chief of police, and council members regarding violations of ALP 

procedure, the recruitment forms of ALP members in central Kunduz were brought to the 

council only after they had been selected, trained, and armed by SOFs, and then council members were asked to sign them.161

In conclusion, in Kunduz arbaki militias and the ALP emerged out of a specific set of 

security conditions associated with the reemergence of the Taliban, the deployment of U.S. 

forces, the holding of elections, and a precarious political settlement involving local, provincial, and national players. The counterresponse to the insurgency was organized by armed 

groups of Northern Alliance factions, whose power was directly threatened by the reemergence of the Taliban. Militia formation therefore had little to do with protecting communities 

and was primarily about protecting the new power structure at the provincial level. As a result, 

it was initially a local initiative with little involvement from the central government or U.S. 

or NATO forces.

This dynamic is quite unlike that in Wardak. Once remobilized, the arbaki militias remained a prominent element of the local security environment. After temporarily pushing the 

Militia formation had little 

to do with protecting 

communities and was 

primarily about protecting 

the new power structure at 

the provincial level.
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USIP.ORG 37

Taliban back and bringing a measure of security, their abusive activities gave rise to significant 

law-and-order problems. The presence of so many armed groups consolidated a highly variegated and decentralized security landscape where multiple armed groups were competing for 

power and resources. The ALP was just a small part of this landscape. The arbaki militias of 

local power brokers were well placed to co-opt the ALP program when it was implemented 

in Kunduz in early 2011, demonstrating how the programs tended to follow existing lines of 

power and feed into local struggles for control of coercive resources. By the end of 2012, this 

power game had been won by the dominant military force, Jamiat-e-Islami and Northern Alliance factions.

The dominance of the security and administrative structures in the province by nonPashtuns in a majority Pashtun province in the north was already a problematic issue before 

the Taliban reemerged in 2009. It is likely to further contribute to Pashtun feelings of marginalization and in turn may invite overtures of protection from the Taliban, in which case further 

clashes can be expected. When the time comes for the withdrawal of U.S. forces, the balance 

of power among local armed groups may change once again in favor of Taliban insurgents. For 

the foreseeable future, the Pashtun populations of Kunduz will remain caught between the 

Taliban and a hostile local power structure from which they are excluded, a dynamic that will 

increase their dependence on the Taliban for protection.

Findings and Analysis

A great deal of effort has been invested in assessing the impacts of various forms of intervention in Afghanistan.162 Defining and evaluating success or failure is not merely a technical or 

scientific exercise, it is also tied up with particular normative and political judgments about 

what is desirable. NATO troop-providing countries keen to facilitate a hasty withdrawal have 

a vested interest in presenting an optimistic picture. This meta-narrative of success may also 

shape how the ALP is conceptualized and is seen to be delivering on a set of targets, which are 

defined differently by international and domestic actors.163 There are strong institutional pressures to ignore evidence that declared goals are not being met.164 This is particularly relevant 

to programs like the ALP, which, as shown, is the latest iteration in a series of experiments involving the constant recycling and reinvention of projects. The apparent failure to learn, though 

true across the board, may be a particularly acute problem in the military because of the rapid 

turnover of staff.

Lessons derived from the program will depend partly on how success is formulated and 

judged. The program was itself the result of a messy compromise involving different actors 

with competing rationales and interests. The motivations of those involved varied and included 

fighting the Taliban, securing the state, protecting self or community, maintaining the status 

quo, renegotiating power relations, extending patronage relationships, accessing external resources, and settling scores.

Even when stated goals are met, they are achieved at a severe cost—most obviously in 

terms of human lives but also the trade-offs and opportunity costs involved in prioritizing one 

goal or area of intervention over another.165 A trade-off may also be temporal, in the sense that 

success in the short term may have severe and irreversible costs in the long term.

The difficulty of making judgments is also compounded by the challenges of accessing 

reliable data and evidence. Independent evaluation of the ALP and other militia programs has 

been limited. This is partly because of the sensitivity of the topic, related to problems of access 

The arbaki militias of local 

power brokers were well 

placed to co-opt the ALP 

program when it was 

implemented in Kunduz in 

early 2011, demonstrating 

how the programs tended 

to follow existing lines of 

power and feed into local 

struggles for control of 

coercive resources.
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to information, and the likelihood that data will be politicized or manipulated. Those with the 

most critical attitude at the outset are the least able to gain access, and those with the best access are often too close to the military to provide independent and critical analysis. Moreover, 

the literature is full of essentialized and simplified narratives about Afghan culture and society 

that clouds critical analysis.166

Explaining Different Outcomes

The case studies illustrate the heterogeneity and complexity of the local security architecture 

in Afghanistan; the same program looks very different in one context over another. How does 

one explain this variability over time and space? What were the key variables that shaped the 

dynamics and outcomes of the ALP program? We have attempted to show through the case 

studies how the ALP is mediated and translated through complex bargaining relationships 

between international actors and both national and provincial elites in the context of an intensifying insurgency. These are ineluctable political processes, shaped of course by the security 

environment and the economic interests of diverse actors.

In Baghlan, for example, the ALP became a vehicle for politically marginalized local Pashtuns to renegotiate the Tajik Jamiat-e-Islami dominated post-2001 order. It can be seen as 

an attempt by the excluded to leverage external support to increase their access to power and 

resources. In Kunduz, a former Taliban stronghold in the north with a majority Pashtun population, the expansion of the Taliban insurgency threatened the power of the dominant coalition. Arbaki militias and later the ALP became the instrument to preserve the existing order 

against the threat of the Taliban. This brought short-term security but further marginalized the 

Pashtun population and thus increased the likelihood of a violent contestation of the political 

settlement in the future.

In Wardak, the ALP program was an implant by foreign forces aiming to stabilize a security context that was far more complex than originally imagined. Unlike Kunduz and Baghlan, 

where a dominant group had emerged, the political landscape in Wardak was open, fragmented, and contested. The fault lines in the struggle for ascendency were more complex than the 

Pashtun-Tajik and Pashtun-Uzbek dynamics seen in Baghlan and Kunduz. Wardak remains 

a hotbed of internal factional power struggles among armed groups of more or less equal 

strength, all belonging to the same ethnic group—although Hizb-e-Islami remains the dominant political force in many districts.167 Pashtun communities are divided in support for the 

government and the insurgency, and close family members may stand on opposite sides.168 The 

Hazara and Tajik power brokers used access to AP3 and ALP resources to ensure the exclusion 

of Pashtuns from the economic resources of the Central Highland region. One might have 

predicted a counterresponse by the Pashtuns to rearm, but this did not occur, possibly because 

most Pashtuns feared Taliban reprisals if they joined government militias.

Impacts on Security

The role of the ALP needs to be kept in perspective. In terms of funding and size, the program 

is relatively insignificant and certainly does not compare with the militias of the Najibullah 

era. In addition, the difference between the ALP and the ANP should not be overstated: The 

distinction in Afghanistan between state and nonstate, regular and irregular, is blurred in 

terms of the status, behavior, capacity, and legitimacy of the various “specialists in violence.” 

The same actors may be constantly switching sides or even simultaneously be a member of 

both. The ANP is also in part composed of militias that have simply been rebranded as na-
Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan

USIP.ORG 39

tional police after 2001, as the Baghlan case clearly illustrates, and at times the ANP has been 

more abusive than the ALP toward civilians. The greatest threat to stability in Afghanistan is 

less the existence of a few hundred militias per district in the form of the ALP and more the 

danger that after 2014 an oversized and unevenly trained armed force will decompose and 

fragment into myriad competing militia groups, as it did after the collapse of the Najibullah 

regime. The ANSF in their current form are not fiscally sustainable, which raises the question of how long Western donors can continue to fund the estimated $6 billion per annum 

to sustain them.

When making judgments about the ALP’s impacts on security, different conceptualizations of security are frequently conflated. The first is security in relation to the fight against the 

Taliban and whether the ALP is an effective force in gaining a tactical or strategic advantage 

in the war effort. Second is the security of the state and whether the ALP plays a role in 

strengthening the institutions and legitimacy of the state (not just the regime). Third is the 

security of the Afghan population and whether the ALP provides a form of protection to the 

rural Afghan population or acts as a magnet for insurgent attacks (as Karzai has argued).169

Making judgments about the effects of the ALP on any of these three dimensions of 

security is extremely difficult given the problems of data, counterfactuals, attribution, and 

time frames. The ALP may positively affect one dimension but adversely affect another: For 

example, the program may be effective at countering the Taliban, but at the expense of the 

population’s security and ultimately undermining the security of the state if it leads to the uncontrolled fragmentation of the means of violence, as the Kunduz case illustrates.

Supporters of the program point to the fact that the ALP has been disproportionately 

targeted by the Taliban as a metric of success. According to ISAF data, 6.2 percent of ALP 

members have been wounded or killed versus fewer than 3 percent of the Afghan army and 

police. It is no coincidence that in 2012 the death rate of foreign forces declined markedly in 

parallel with the significant increase in the toll on Afghan forces. The number of ANSF forces 

being hit by IEDs increased by 124 percent, and an average of nearly three hundred Afghan 

security forces were killed on a monthly basis in late 2012 and early 2013 (DePetris 2013).170

Although the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported a 12 percent 

decline in civilian casualties in 2012, the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office data for the first 

quarter of 2013 showed a dramatic increase in violence, 47 percent more attacks by the armed 

opposition compared with the same period in 2012. The majority of these attacks targeted 

Afghan civilians and security forces. Attacks by the insurgents against international troops 

constituted only 4 percent of the total versus 73 percent against the Afghan security forces. In 

the first three months of 2013, 1,183 Afghan soldiers were killed, an increase of 40 percent 

versus the same period in 2012 (Nordland 2013b).

The ALP data can be interpreted in various ways: 

■ Lightly armed ALP units are located in exposed, frontline, contested areas and, as the first 

line of defense against better armed insurgents, are most likely to be attacked. 

■ The Taliban see them as challengers to their rule in the villages, more so than the regular 

forces—hence, for example, Taliban statements that the killing of one ALP member is 

worth ten U.S. soldiers.171

■ ALP forces are easier targets because they have less weaponry to protect themselves and 

nowhere to run because they live in the villages. 

■ The ALP units have fewer financial resources than regular forces and therefore are less able 

to buy off or negotiate spot bargains or conflict management pacts with the Taliban—

The ALP may be effective 

at countering the Taliban, 

but at the expense of the 

population’s security and 

ultimately undermining the 

security of the state.
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though they do have the capacity to generate revenues through local taxation, as do the 

regular forces and the Taliban.

NATO’s shift back toward counterterrorism rather than counterinsurgency following 

McChrystal’s removal involved rebalancing the terms of engagement and a concomitant increased reliance on kinetic power. This shift is reflected in the upward trends in security incidents, night raids, and aerial bombardments in the three provinces studied, which, combined 

with buying off the loyalties of antigovernment elements, appeared to quell the insurgency.172

Although the military strategy achieved some tactical successes in terms of pushing back the 

Taliban, the extent to which the creation of ALP units contributed to the clearing and holding of these areas is difficult to ascertain. Interviewees maintained that the ALP were more 

effective than regular forces in outlying areas because they knew the lay of the land and were 

an important source of intelligence. Some evidence, though not very systematic evidence, indicates that the ALP constituted a useful military asset that contributed at least temporarily to 

the Taliban’s having to cede territory.

And though militias may be effective militarily and cost-effective in resource use, they can 

be politically costly; they are supposedly formed to engage in protective violence—though in 

practice have often been used as a combat force—but often mete out predatory and abusive 

violence, as shown in other cases (Kalyvas 2006). In the long term, increased insecurity of 

communities is likely to act as a further catalyst for the insurgency. An association between 

the ISAF and these militia forces increases resentment toward international forces and the 

government. For example, ALP forces in Baghlan were perceived locally as a criminal network 

involved in the forced extraction of zakat and kidnappings. In spite of the protestations of 

their supporters that “the misconduct is extremely low in comparison to the numbers that are 

out there,” community perceptions are important, and a small number of incidents can have a 

disproportionate impact.173

The positive gains in relation to the Taliban must be balanced against other costs. Over the 

war years, a patronage-based political marketplace has become monetized and regionalized, 

and shifting alliances are shaped by contending resource flows and changing power dynamics, making it an extremely volatile system. In some places, the ALP has created a perverse 

incentive structure in which groups compete for resources, including from the insurgency, to 

strengthen their position with respect to other local power holders and groups, as in the case of 

Hazaras in Jalrez and Pashtuns in Puli Khumri. In this context, the program may encourage a 

dynamic of competitive rearmament or an armament spiral in one place, but in another content, it may provide coercive resources to weaker actors to balance the power of stronger rivals. 

The ability and willingness of the government to disarm militias that have gone rogue varied 

across the cases. Nizami in Kunduz was ultimately dealt with, for example, but other arbaki 

militias linked to local and national power brokers were not.

Local conflicts frequently transcend the local. Small-scale conflicts usually become enmeshed in and influence wider conflicts at the provincial, interprovincial, or national levels. For 

example, conflicts in Baghlan were intimately connected to wider power dynamics, specifically 

in relation to the role of Atta Mohammad Noor, the governor of Balkh, and Pashtun power 

brokers around the president in Kabul.

Finally, although much of the critical writing about the ALP focuses on how it endangers 

rural communities, there is little acknowledgment that the program puts those who are recruited in extreme danger. It is worth remembering that many of those who join do so because 

they have little choice, being forced into militias as a result of coercive pressure or economic 

In the long term, increased 

insecurity of communities 

is likely to act as a further 

catalyst for the insurgency.
Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan

USIP.ORG 41

necessity. The risks for ALP members and their communities are likely to increase with the 

drawdown of foreign troops. One of the analysts responsible for founding the ALP, Seth Jones, 

noted in a recent interview, “If you pull [special operations forces] out ... the villagers are going 

to be the ones who pay the price” (cited in Hodge 2013).

Impacts on Statebuilding and Governance

The case studies have highlighted how militias are influenced by and shape the spatial dynamics 

of conflict and statebuilding. They show the need to think carefully about how the state, including foreign forces, and counter-state formations seek to territorialize power and how peripheral 

elites collude with or resist the projects of political elites at the center. COIN analysts frequently 

claim that the insurgency and counterinsurgency have led to the bifurcation of territory into 

state and nonstate spaces. State space, according to several interviewees, contains the major population centers, critical infrastructure, and roads that are prioritized, defended, and protected by 

the state. It is commonly asserted that 80 percent of the fighting occurs where only 20 percent 

of the population live. Conversely, 80 percent of the population are assumed to live in relatively 

secure areas. To some extent, this follows the historical pattern, in which state spaces have been 

restricted to the major population centers and the most accessible areas of the country that can 

be most profitably administered. Nonstate or antistate spaces have always tended to be peripheral, rural areas, where tribal structures remain strong and where administration and governance 

is difficult and, thus, where the state has a comparative disadvantage (Barfield 2004).

The general literature on insurgency and counterinsurgency supports a more complex 

picture that is also evident in the case studies. At one level, this might be conceptualized as 

a three-way division of territory into state, nonstate, and gray zones, reflecting the fact that 

political actors in irregular warfare face three distinct population sets: populations they control, populations they share, and populations belonging to rivals (Kalyvas 2006). They are also 

constantly faced with an identification problem: Who is on our side? Who can be trusted? It 

is in the gray zones that defection is most likely and that the highest levels of indiscriminate 

violence are experienced. Yet this also simplifies a more complex reality. As noted, the boundaries between state and nonstate are blurred to the extent that they become almost meaningless. 

Gray zones can be state spaces during the day and antistate spaces during the night, and the 

correlation between peripherality and antistate status is not straightforward.

The stated aim of NATO forces has been to create what they call white space in the nonstate spaces and gray zones in which to clear, hold, and build.174 In many places, though, holding has been difficult when allies have been predatory. Outsourcing community protection 

and defense to the ALP may, far from extending state power and legitimacy, have the opposite 

effect.

To understand this issue, we need to appreciate the ways that the ALP reflects and helps 

shape core-periphery and intra-periphery bargaining relationships over access to resources and 

the means of coercion. State and nonstate actors compete with one another to gain access to 

what might be called violence rights and economic assets, and this competition in turn recalibrates core-periphery relations. The ALP influences politics at the local level by empowering 

and disempowering particular groups. To a large extent, there is a disjuncture between outsiders’ idealized notions of traditional shura, elder, and tribal institutions and the real power structures and actual practices of commanders who are key ALP members. Evidently, the extent 

to which the ALP has consolidated or undermined political order has varied from district to 

district and over time.
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The Wardak, Baghlan, and Kunduz examples support studies showing that elections have 

shortened the time frames and destabilized the dynamics of elite pacts (Giustozzi and Orsini 

2009). Elections have been important turning points in relation to the insurgency and local 

politics. The Taliban have made advances during these periods, partly because the state is even 

less coherent at these times, and corruption in the voting process further delegitimizes state 

officials in the eyes of the population. Militia formation may also be directly linked to election 

campaigns—the 2009 presidential election campaign, for example. Local militias also become 

entwined with parliamentary politics, with MPs often lobbying to have their people included 

within the ALP program.

The ALP may also become a vehicle for ethnic assertion as in Baghlan. In this case, Pashtuns were excluded from the state security architecture, as shown by the ANP tashkil, in which 

2,400 of 2,800 are from one district (PTRO 2011), and consequently the excluded groups saw 

the ALP as a way to leverage power and protection. The resulting security arrangements pitted Tajiks in the regular forces against Pashtuns in the irregular forces, thus working at odds 

with declared statebuilding goals. Following a long-standing pattern, the weaker party (the 

Pashtuns) seek to leverage external support from more powerful actors, whether the Taliban 

or central government.

As the three case studies show, the picture is far more complex than a Taliban–anti-Taliban 

fault line. The micro cleavages of conflict get caught up in the meta cleavages of civil war, as 

Stathis Kalyvas shows in relation to the civil war in Greece (2006). Politics becomes privatized 

as individuals and groups seek to settle scores by drawing on wider discourses around the national conflict. Hizb-e-Islami and Taliban clashes in Wardak are one example of mobilizing 

the population for self-defense, constituting a means of fermenting old factional differences. 

In this context, the ALP can be an instrument to settle old scores. As such, it may prolong and 

intensify conflict, undermine state authority, and create competing power structures difficult 

for the state to control. International forces are also sucked into these local power games—for 

example, the U.S. SOF support for ALP units in a firefight with the ANP in Baghlan. One 

might contrast the haphazard attempts of the SOFs to identify and arm proxies with the 

patient and systematic efforts of the Taliban to penetrate areas of the north (Giustozzi and 

Reuter 2011).

As other studies have shown, in Helmand, the ALP has become inseparable from longstanding conflicts between indigenous and settler communities. The settlers see the program 

as an external force that has become involved in poppy eradication to further the interests of 

powerful actors linked to the state (Mansfield 2013). In Jalrez district in Wardak, as discussed, 

Hazaras and Tajiks were keen to join the ALP to keep Taliban and Pashtun nomads (often 

conflated) out of Hazara areas, but Pashtuns were more reticent, in fear of Taliban reprisals. 

Subsequently, when Pashtuns joined the ALP, recruits were dominated by one particular clan 

with links to a local jihadi commander, Ghulam Mohammad Hotak.

If COIN is truly a battle for justice, then the effects of the ALP are at best ambiguous 

or mixed. This situation is exacerbated by the absence of effective and timely state justice. 

Although the ALP program may be relatively cheap in resource terms, it involves significant 

opportunity costs. As a number of European informants argued, deploying the police as a paramilitary force leads to the neglect of what should be the primary peace mission, which involves 

protecting the public from serious crime.

The ALP is symptomatic of a wider deficiency of the post-2001 intervention in Afghanistan; there has been a constant search for temporary solutions that end up creating more 

Deploying the police as a 

paramilitary force leads to 

the neglect of what should 

be the primary peace 

mission.
Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan

USIP.ORG 43

problems, which are in turn dealt with pragmatically and superficially. The creation and then 

disbanding of the CIP force in Kunduz, which in some cases were simply renamed as the ALP, 

is a case in point. Temporary solutions nevertheless create path dependencies. The ALP will 

not go away, and it will leave a long-term legacy that others, above all the Afghans, will have 

to deal with.

Implications

This study has aimed to uncover and analyze the complex political and security dynamics 

surrounding the ALP program in three provinces. Rather than seek to extract generalizable 

policy lessons and prescriptions, the case studies aim to show the complexity and contingency 

of individual contexts and thus highlight the redundancy of off-the-peg policy advice in Afghanistan and elsewhere. However, the findings do have relevance for debates on transition in 

Afghanistan and statebuilding and state consolidation more broadly.

Statebuilding has historically been a violent, largely endogenous, and unplanned process 

that takes a long time and follows varied and unpredictable trajectories. Research on state formation in Afghanistan and other late-developing countries shows that the impact of violence 

devolution is also varied and unpredictable (Ahram 2011; Giustozzi 2009b). Historically, states 

have frequently franchised the means of violence to nonstate actors, and in the long term, this 

strategy may extend rather than diminish the authority of the state. Yet in other contexts, or 

at other times, violence devolution has contributed to processes of state collapse. A key variable is the role and capacity of the state and the extent to which it has the coercive power, 

resources, and legitimacy to enforce and shape political settlements and regulate the decentralized violence its agents exercise. State capacity is in turn shaped by processes occurring above 

and below the state—including the level and type of engagement of international and regional 

actors and the orientation and capacities of armed nonstate or antistate actors. It is important 

to appreciate the specific origins and characteristics of militias and their patrons, including 

their internal organization, leadership, and incentive systems, as well as the external context in 

which they emerged and evolved.

Analytically, it also seems to be important to distinguish between militias constituted as 

part of a process of endogenous statebuilding, characterized by Charles Tilly as coercion intensive statebuilding (1992), and those funded externally in the context of imperial wars or counterinsurgency operations. In some cases, imperial powers have successfully mobilized militias 

to prop up regimes in the context of decolonization struggles or in more recent statebuilding interventions such as Iraq.  However, apart from the immediate costs in terms of human 

lives and rights abuses, such experiments in surrogate forces have often left baleful long-term 

legacies for the successor governments.

The positive albeit brutal examples of militia formation have involved states playing the 

preeminent role in creating, funding, and controlling their militias. This depends on a level of 

state leadership, coherence, and capacity based on a sufficiently inclusive political settlement, 

which currently does not exist in Afghanistan. The Afghan case has experienced both types 

of militia formation and is a powerful illustration of the deleterious effects of exogenous, 

militarized statebuilding, which at many different levels has undermined the statebuilding 

endeavor. This is reflected in the paramilitarization of the national police, the skewed distribution of aid funding, and the plethora of aid projects driven by a military rather than a 

development logic.
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COIN experts are correct in highlighting the illiberal ways in which states have successfully dealt with internal insurgencies and consolidated their power; this more closely resembles 

historical experience than the liberal version of “nice statebuilding” (Mayall and de Oliviera 

2011). Such reading of the evidence is highly selective, however, and these experts have rescued from the dustbin of history a set of colonial practices that, putting aside ethical concerns, 

have at best a mixed track record of success, particularly when applied in the contemporary 

context to expeditionary statebuilding. The paradox at the heart of this doctrine is that successful COIN depends on the existence of a high-capacity regime to put it into practice, but 

exogenous statebuilding prevents the emergence of such a regime in the first place.

The three case studies presented here suggest that U.S. special forces and other external 

military actors lack the capacity or legitimacy to make informed decisions about whom to support and why and, as the case of the ALP has demonstrated, that they have undermined efforts 

directed toward state consolidation. This is not to reify or romanticize indigenous actors. The 

simple fact is that they have a different opportunity-risk calculus from external players, who 

need not, in the long term, live with the consequences of their decisions. Choices have been 

made with little appreciation of either the long-term consequences for the state or the immediate consequences for the local populations. The primary driver has been the search for tactical 

advantage; the special forces have supported whomever they felt at the time was most effective 

in the fight against the Taliban, whether Abdul Raziq or Nurul Haq, even though they have a 

track record of human rights abuses and predation against the wider population.175

Based on the criteria of short-term tactical advantage, the ALP has on occasion worked 

as intended. Yet these positive impacts have often been short lived and often at the cost of the 

perceived legitimacy and capacity of the Afghan state. A central paradox of the ALP program 

is that it is least likely to work in the areas where the program is believed to be most needed. 

In other words, when the state presence—particularly a credible ANP presence, which can 

back up the ALP and monitor its activities—is strong, it may play a useful auxiliary role in 

holding ground and preventing Taliban penetration. However, in the outlying areas, where the 

state presence has always been limited and contested, the ALP is likely to live off the land and 

contribute to an existing law-and-order problem.

Recommendations

Clearly, the problem of militias has no straightforward solution. Militias grow like a mold in a 

particular security environment, and the long-term solution lies in changing that environment. 

To a large extent, the solutions are not military but political, ultimately depending on the forging of a more inclusive political settlement.

It is not realistic to disarm these groups, and of course the problem extends well beyond 

the ALP. In Afghanistan today, there exists a mass of other armed groups, all of which will 

remained armed, and this will continue to be the case while there is widespread insecurity, 

concerns about the future, and a lack of alternative forms of protection and sustenance. The 

long-term future of the ALP program at the time of writing remains uncertain. However, if the 

program continues, some practical measures can and should be pursued.

First, the program should not be expanded. President Karzai has made this clear, especially 

in his repeated requests to strengthen the regular forces, the ANA, and the ANP. U.S. and 

other foreign special forces are likely to remain engaged in Afghanistan after the transition, 

and it is important that they resist the temptation to form more local militias, whether within 

or outside the ALP program.

A central paradox of the 

ALP program is that it is 

least likely to work in the 

areas where the program 

is believed to be 

most needed. 
Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan

USIP.ORG 45

Second, stronger state oversight and support of the ALP program is needed. This may 

mean retrenching the program to areas where the ANA-ANP presence is strong, community 

support is substantial, and stability is sufficient to enable the ALP to hold ground. The incorporation of the ALP into the ANSF is key to its playing a state-supporting role and preventing 

further fragmentation of violence and the intensification of local power struggles. Strengthening the ANSF-ALP nexus is also critical, as is avoiding placing the ALP in an isolation ward. 

ISAF statements regarding cutting ANSF numbers in favor of the ALP because it is cheaper 

would be detrimental in the long run.

Third, in the medium to long term, plans should be developed to facilitate the ALP’s absorption into the ANP. International donors must be willing to pay the additional costs for 

this to happen. In terms of centralization versus fragmentation of violence, much is tied to 

dependence on resource flows. Whilst ALP forces and other militias are part of the tashkil and 

salaries are paid through the center, ALP arguably acts as a centripetal force. In the absence of 

centralized patronage, however, it can rapidly change into a centrifugal force and contribute to 

the unraveling of centralizing efforts. Greater clarity is needed regarding long-term funding 

options for the ALP, as currently they are off budget and directly paid by the U.S. military. A 

multidonor funding source might be necessary to facilitate ALP-ANSF integration.

In the final analysis, the ALP is a second-order question. Dealing with it depends on 

whether international actors are prepared to deal with the first-order questions. This essentially 

boils down to two interrelated issues. First, will international actors accept and support a political process that involves negotiating a new political settlement in Afghanistan? This process 

would necessarily involve peace talks with the Taliban and negotiation of a post-Karzai political dispensation. It will not come about as a result of democratic elections but instead would 

involve backroom bargains and deal making that may be unpalatable to Western actors. The 

result would not be a government of reformers but a coalition of power holders with unsavory 

pasts and powerful patrons. Second, will donors continue to provide the resources to fund such 

a state? A sudden reduction in funding will not only create incentives for the ALP to go rogue 

but also and more significantly lead to the unraveling of the regular forces.
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Notes

 1. The ANSF are composed of the Afghan National Army (ANA), Afghan National Police (ANP), and 

National Directorate of Security (NDS). The total project strength of the armed forces is currently at 

352,000, but plans are to reduce it by 100,000 after 2014. 

 2. Research for this paper was funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Kabul and the United States 

Institute of Peace. The authors would also like to acknowledge the invaluable feedback provided on an early 

draft of this paper by Antonio Giustozzi, Mark Sedra, Astri Suhrke, and Torunn Wimpelmann.

 3. These findings are based on a structured, focused comparison of provincial case studies in Wardak, Baghlan, 

and Kunduz, complemented by interviews in Kabul and a review of the secondary literature. Provincial and 

Kabul-level field work was conducted from September 2011 through July 2012 by Aziz Hakimi. This was 

followed up by a field visit to Kabul in November 2012 by both authors. A total of 160 interviews were 

conducted with a range of key informants, including Afghan officials in Kabul; provincial governors and 

police chiefs; local elders; provincial council members; ANA, ANP, and NDS personnel; serving and former 

ministers; International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and U.S. special operations force (SOF) officers; 

journalists; and civil society activists. Research of this nature faces significant challenges in relation to 

security, ethics, and methodology. We have attempted to mitigate these challenges through a range of strategies including mixing methods, triangulation of data, careful deliberation over research ethics, collaborating 

closely with local partners, and drawing on long-standing relationships in the field.

 4. The various stated goals of the interveners have included: counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, statebuilding, development, democratization, counternarcotics, human rights, and gender equity. Other factors that 

were less openly acknowledged include: reorienting the NATO alliance, strengthening diplomatic ties 

between Western allies, countering the influence of enemies, responding to pressures from domestic voters, 

and accessing resources or trying to protect existing policy investments.

 5. For a critical account of international statebuilding and peacebuilding efforts during the post–Cold War 

period, see Mayall and de Oliviera (2011).

 6. This contradiction essentially boils down to different conceptions of the police force as either a gendarmerie 

or a civilian police force (Rosenau 2008; Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh 2013).

 7. So, for example, the United States resisted the expansion of ISAF forces beyond Kabul, wanting to maintain 

a light footprint and to prioritize the war on terror over peacekeeping (Maley 2006; Rubin 2005).

 8. For a useful overview of the antecedents and emergence of the liberal peace, see Paris (2004). For a critique 

of the liberal peace as a policy paradigm, see Chandler (2010).

 9. Interestingly, in the light of current debates on militias, it was Dostum’s “army of the north,” originally a 

militia which mostly retained its character for some time as a regular army. 

10. The Bonn Agreement (officially the Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the 

Re-Establishment of Permanent Government Institutions) was signed on December 22, 2001. Among its 

provisions were the establishment of an Afghan Interim Authority, an Afghan Constitution Commission, 

and a NATO-led ISAF.

11. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, use of private and irregular security forces has been extensive. In March 2011, 

roughly 174,000 contractors were active in Afghanistan and Iraq.

12. The Afghanistan Compact was adopted in January of 2006, when the transition process set out in the Bonn 

Agreement had been formally completed. The compact lay out a set of political, economic, and security 

benchmarks agreed between the international community and the Afghan government to be met in the 

succeeding five years.

13. The ANP is composed of the following sections: the Afghan Uniform Police, 90,500 members responsible 

for core policing functions; the Afghan National Civil Order Police, an elite constabulary of 14,400 personnel; the Afghan Border Police (ABP), 20,000 personnel responsible for security at airports, land entry 

points, and border security zones; and the Afghan Anti-Crime Police, 3,400 personnel responsible for the 

investigative and intelligence capacities of the ANP nationwide (Planty and Perito, 2013, 4).

14. One illustration of this bias is the content of the focused district development training program provided by 

U.S. police mentoring teams. The program included seven weeks of instruction in military tactics, weapons 

use, survival strategies, and counterinsurgency operations and one week of training in basic police skills.

15. “Creating paramilitary police forces is a relatively straightforward endeavour, as it requires little or no culturally specific instruction, and can be carried out by rapidly deployable military advisors. Establishing professional, accountable, public-safety oriented police is another matter altogether” (Rosenau 2008, 15).

16. The experience of how non-Western empires policed their unruly frontiers is also relevant. For example, the 

Ottomans relied on elaborate brokering arrangements to maintain control of the empire’s peripheries: “No 

matter how strong an empire, it has to work with peripheries, local elites and frontier groups to maintain 

compliance, resources, tribute and military cooperation to ensure political coherence and durability” (Barkey 

2008, 10).

17. The invention of native traditions was a precondition of indirect rule, colonial powers being concerned to 

establish the credentials of their native allies as “traditional” and “authentic” (Mamdani 2012). Unlike race, 
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which was taken to mark a civilizational hierarchy, tribe was a marker of cultural diversity. Natives were said 

to be tribal by nature; the practice of governing them was called native administration.

18. For a discussion of the tribal security system of the arbaki, see Osman (2008). See also Porter (2009, 198), 

who in his excellent book Military Orientalism warns against the dangers of the cultural turn in Western 

militaries. As he notes, in “its more crass forms it recycles old bigotry in the language of political 

correctness.”

19. For example, Giustozzi stated that by late 1989 or early 1990, a hundred thousand former mujahedin had 

joined the various types of irregular armed formations (2009b, 54). In Herat, the 17th infantry division 

numbered 3,400 regular troops and 14,000 militiamen.

20. Geraint Hughes and Christian Tripodi (2009) further distinguish between different types of surrogate 

forces, namely, individual actors (trackers, interpreters, informers, and agents), home guards, militias, 

counter gangs, and pseudo gangs.

21. For example, the Sri Lankan government created both types of organizations as part of its counterinsurgency 

campaign against the LTTE. Home guard units were created among the Sinhala settler communities in the 

borderland areas of the northeast, and Tamil militias were mobilized to control the Tamil population, generate intelligence, and fight the LTTE.

22. The Afghan Military Forces were part of the formal Northern Alliance forces that had joined the American 

forces during the invasion. On the other hand, armed groups and militias that did not come under this 

formal structure were targeted through the DIAG program.

23. On the emergence of the military-industrial-academic complex—comprised of warrior intellectuals and 

institutions like the RAND Corporation, the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. 

Andrews, Kings College London, and the Carr Center, Harvard University—see Miller and Mills (2010). 

COIN drew in particular from the experience of the late colonial wars of the 1950s and 1960s. Wars in 

Indochina and Algeria were quietly reframed not as national tragedies to avoid repeating at all costs but 

rather as helpful pilot studies in the Long War (Feichtinger, Malinowski, and Richards 2012, 45). For 

examples of this reframing of the colonial archive as a useful technical resource, see Kilcullen (2009) and 

Jones (2012). David Petraeus personified a new breed of “warrior intellectuals”; his PhD in history from 

Princeton University in 1987 was titled, “The American Military and Lesson of Vietnam.” Petraeus subsequently codified his insights in the Army’s official Field Manual 3-24: Counterinsurgency.

24. For example, in December 2006, a joint report by the inspectors general of the state and defense departments found that U.S.-trained Afghan police were incapable of conducting routine law enforcement and 

that American program managers could not account for the number of ANP officers on duty or the 

whereabouts of vehicles, equipment, and weapons provided by the Afghan government (cited in Perito 

2009, 5).

25. Seth Jones (2012) provides a selective and in some cases misleading reading of previous counterinsurgency 

operations, including U.S. support to paramilitary forces in Vietnam, Philippines, and Latin America, as 

well as British colonial efforts in policing its former colonies in Asia and Africa and attempts to draw out 

their relevance to contemporary Afghanistan and the U.S. efforts there to set up local militias.

26. APPF was discussed in July 2010 at the same time that negotiations over the ALP were under way. It was 

only created in early 2011 to replace hundreds of private security companies. Karzai issued a decree in 

August 2010, ordering the disbanding of all PSCs by December 2010. However, following pressure from 

ISAF and development contractors and NGOs who depended on PSCs for their security, a one-year extension was negotiated until March 2013 (DOD 2011b; Aikins 2012).

27. Atmar characterized this as an attempt to renationalize security, first, by ending the mandate of Private 

Security Companies, and second, by reviving the tribal tradition of local policing, known as arbaki. For 

analyses of arbaki, see Osman (2008).

28. Interview, Haneef Atmar, former minister of interior, Kabul, August 5, 2012. For a discussion of Atmar’s 

thinking on the AP3, see the leaked 2009 U.S. Embassy cable “Unconventional Security Forces—What’s 

Out There?” (U.S. Embassy Kabul 2009c). The description of the AP3 here is also based on a 2009 MOI 

strategy paper on file with the author. 

29. At the time Seth Jones, the author of the report on which the narrative is based, was a RAND consultant to 

U.S. Special Forces Command. 

30. These additional districts were Arghandab, Kandahar; Chamkani, Paktia; Shindand, Herat; and Posht-e 

Rod, Farah.

31. A 2010 strategy paper developed by the MOI and the United States stated that the district governor would 

work with the CDI or village shura to select, vet, and supervise LDI. Individual payments were set at 50 

percent of the ANP. Defenders were expected to bring their own weapons (Lefevre 2012, 3).

32. When Atmar was interviewed in August 2012, he criticized the approach SOFs took to LDI, implementing 

them as ad hoc experiments without government approval and outside its institutional framework.

33. Interview, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, head of Afghan National Security Council, Kabul, April 10, 2012.

34. Interview, Tonita Murray, adviser to ministry of interior, Kabul, November 6, 2012. 
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35. This was a particular concern of Karzai—and played well to domestic audiences—in his inaugural speech, 

during which he promised that “within the next two years, we want operations by all private national and 

international security firms to be ended and their duties delegated to Afghan security entities” (Lefèvre 

2010).

36. Interview, U.S. military officers, Forward Operating Base, Maidanshahr, Wardak, December 12, 2011.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid.

39 Interview, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, April 10, 2012.

40. Interview, Hamid Karzai, Kabul, May 7, 2013. 

41. Interview, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, April 10, 2012.

42. Interview, Hamid Karzai, May 7, 2013; interview, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, May 5, 2013.

43. Thirty thousand ALP cost $180 million. Per year, one ALP costs $6,000 and one ANA soldier costs 

$30,000. Telephone interview, Colonel Donald Bolduc, deputy commander of NATO Special Operations 

Component Command-Afghanistan, London, November 15, 2012. During the Najibullah regime, militia 

members were paid twice as much as regular soldiers. They also received other incentives, including “enrolment prizes,” exemption from military service, provision of electricity and televisions, and offers of military 

hardware to militia leaders, including armored vehicles and tanks (Giustozzi 2009b).

44. Interview, European embassy official, Kabul, November 2012.

45. Interview, PTRO researcher, Kabul, September 21, 2011.

46. According to Afghanistan’s Central Statistics Office (CSO), the 2011–12 population estimate of Wardak is 

558,000. The 2011 Provincial Development Plan (PDP) estimate of population was over 884,000. The 

Wardak districts include the provincial capital Maidanshahr, Nerkh, Jalrez, Sayedabad, Chak, Jaghatu, 

Daimirdad, Behsud-e-Markazi, and Hesa-e-Awal Behsud. No reliable figures on the division of population 

into ethnic groups are available. The PDP and the CSO do not provide breakdown of population according 

to ethnic groups, which is a politically sensitive topic in an ethnically mixed province with a history of 

conflict. In 2012, the CSO reportedly decided not to include ethnicity as a variable in its population survey 

because of political sensitivities. According to a 2004 Swedish Committee for Afghanistan report that relied 

on 2002 UNHCR figures, the population in Daimirdad is 63 percent Pashtun and 37 percent Hazara, and 

the population in Nerkh is 80 percent Pashtun, 15 percent Tajik, and 5 percent Hazara. According to the 

NGO Cooperation for Peace and Unity, 45 percent of the Jalrez population belong to the Kharooti subtribe 

and 65 percent of the Maidanshahr population are Pashtun (Merkova, Dennys, and Zaman 2009). 

According to 2011–12 CSO population estimates, one-fifth of the population live in the predominantly 

Pashtun district Sayedabad and slightly more than that number live in the predominately Hazara district of 

Behsud-e-Markazi. Hazaras almost exclusively inhabit the two Behsud districts. Tajiks constitute a minority 

and live mostly in the capital Maidanshahr and Nerkh districts.

47. The 2003 CSO-United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) socioeconomic survey indicates that only about 

5 percent of the population has access to electricity, that Maidanshahr only recently received a power line 

from Kabul, and that the 3,300-kilowatt hydroelectric dam in Chak is producing at one-third of its capacity. 

The same survey indicates that 40 percent of the wheat produced in the province comes from the Behsude-Markazi district and that about 80 percent of all animal products come from Behsud-e-Markazi, Hesa-eAwal Behsud, Chak, and Sayedabad.

 49. The PDP for Wardak (2011–15) stated that most of these projects lacked a long-term vision of sustainability 

and were essentially ad hoc and experimental in nature designed to achieve short-term security. As a result, 

there was a lack of either local community or donor buy-in, and the projects fell victim to interministerial 

rivalries and exploitation by local power brokers. A widespread view in Wardak was that the local governance project, the AP3, suffered from similar problems. 

50. Hizb-e-Islami, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (HIG), is a reformist Islamist movement modeled on the 

Muslim Brotherhood and was one of the seven mujahideen parties based in Peshawar, Pakistan during 

the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad. HIG was a favorite of the Pakistani spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, 

and the CIA and received the bulk of the U.S. military aid channeled through Pakistan’s military. After 

2001, the party split into two factions. The political wing is legally operating from Kabul and is part of 

the Karzai government. The military wing is led by Hekmatyar, who is designated a terrorist by the U.S. 

government and is believed to be hiding in the eastern mountains of Afghanistan or the semiautonomous 

tribal areas of Pakistan. Harakat was led by Maulawi Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi, a conservativetraditionalist jihadi party of rural mullahs from whose ranks many of the Taliban movement’s leadership 

later emerged. After the death of Maulawi Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi, the party was and is (2013) 

led by Haji Mohammad Musa Hotak from the Jalrez district. Musa is a former Harakat commander and 

Taliban deputy minister, MP, and currently a senior adviser to Karzai. Itihad was founded by and is led 

by Abdul Rab-Rasoul Sayyaf, an MP and a senior jihadi leader frequently consulted by Karzai. Itihad 

enjoyed close relations to Saudi Wahabi groups during the 1980s’ jihad and is believed to have been 

instrumental in spreading Wahabism in Afghanistan. The extent of Itihad’s current ties with Saudi 

Wahabi groups is not easily apparent and may not be that significant considering the Taliban’s success in 
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attracting Saudi funding to its jihad against foreign forces. Hizb-e-Wahdat emerged as an umbrella 

organization to accommodate the half-dozen Shia and Hazara jihadi groups supported by Iran during the 

1980s anti-Soviet jihad. Iran’s assistance continued during the factional wars fought among mujahideen 

parties in the early 1990s and in resistance to the Taliban during the late 1990s. Its founder Abdul Ali 

Mazari was killed by the Taliban in 1995. After 2001, as rivalries for power intensified among the party 

leadership, Wahdat split into four groups. Two of the most prominent Hazara politicians, Vice President 

Karim Khalili and former planning minister and current MP Mohammad Mohaqiq, head two of the 

splinter groups.

51. Interview, Halim Fidai, governor of Wardak, Maidanshahr, Wardak, December 11, 2011. A similar version 

of events was narrated by a former Hizb-e-Islami commander currently serving as an ALP commander in 

Nerkh district. Interview, Commander Mohammad Gul Torakai, Maidanshahr, Wardak, September 13, 

2011.

52. Shura-e-Nizar constituted the military wing of Jamait-e-Islami. It was led by Jamiat’s military commander, 

Ahmad Shah Masoud, and was dominated by commanders from the Panjshir valley.

53. Interview, General Muzafaruddin, former provincial police chief, Kabul, December 29, 2011.

54. Musa was Harakat’s main military commander in Jalrez district with an estimated force of more than five 

thousand armed men during the 1980s and early 1990s. He served as a Taliban deputy minister of planning. 

Like his brother Musa, Ghulam Mohammad is a former Harakat commander who fought alongside the 

Taliban in the 1990s. Interview, Halim Fidai, December 11, 2011.

55. Interview, commander Ghulam Mohammad Hotak, Kabul, August 9, 2012. A similar number was mentioned in an Afghanistan Analysts Network report (see Lefèvre 2010, 10).

56. The recurring conflict between nomadic and settled communities in Wardak often erupts during the seasonal migration of Pashtun nomads, starting in early spring, to the central highlands. These conflicts have 

a long history, and they developed new layers of complexity during the war years and after 2001. For 

example, according to an NGO activist from the Hazara community, the Taliban offered to prevent the 

return of Kuchis to Hazara areas in an attempt to prevent the conflict from further escalating and possibly 

drawing in American forces, as illustrated by the example of Jim Gant (2009) in “One Tribe at a Time” (see 

note 165). Interview, civil society activist, Kabul, April 8, 2013. 

57. A range of factors has been mentioned to explain the reemergence of the Taliban in Wardak. They include 

the presence and behavior of foreign forces, a corrupt and predatory government, and persecution of former 

commanders and power holders who took to the mountains and began fighting. Others include religious 

motivation and anger over U.S. night time raids, detention in U.S. military prison in Bagram, and civilian 

casualties linked to air strikes (Ladbury 2009; Merkova, Dennys, and Zaman 2009). A large network of 

madrasa, mosques, and militant preachers in the central region where Wardak is located has made it easy for 

the Taliban to recruit men to their cause (ICG 2011). See also Tariq Osman on insurgency in Wardak and 

Logar (Giustozzi 2009a).

58. The power brokers include Haji Janan, member of provincial council; Abdul Ahmad, former provincial 

police chief and member of parliament; and Haji Musa Hotak, former member of parliament and adviser to 

Karzai and Ghulam Mohammad Hotak, former Taliban commander who also briefly commanded the AP3 

in late 2009 and early 2010.

59. Interviews, Halim Fidai, December 11, 2011, November 3, 2012. 

60. In December 2012, the U.S. Defense Department reported 576 ALP members in Wardak.

61. Interview, member of provincial council, Kabul, January 1, 2012. Another provincial council member 

mentioned a two-day meeting in Kabul in October 2008 where local elders in the presence of ministers of 

interior, defense, national intelligence and the governor of Wardak refused to ratify a government declaration meant to show support by local shuras to the AP3 program. Interview, provincial council member, 

Kabul, December 29, 2011.

62. Interview, Haji Mukhlis, former member of provincial council, Kabul, January 1, 2012; interview, Haji 

Janan, head of provincial council, Kabul, December 29, 2011. 

63. Interview, Ghulam Mohammad Hotak, Kabul, May 9, 2012; interview, Halim Fidai, December 11, 2011.

64. Figures obtained in December 2011 show 350 ALP members in Jalrez district. The total strength of the 

ALP at the time in Wardak was around 800, down from 1,100 in 2010. This is about equal to the total 

number of regular police for the whole province. In March 2012, 260 ALP members were demobilized after 

failing ALP recruitment criteria, further reducing the number to 540. A December 2012 U.S. Defense 

Department report mentioned 576 ALP in Wardak.

65. Interview, Ghulam Mohammad Hotak, Kabul, May 9, 2012.

66. Interview, Mullah Aziz-ur-Rahman Siddiqi, former AP3 commander, Kabul, December 17, 2011. 

67. Interview, commander Mohammad Gul Torakai, Maidanshahr, Wardak, September 13, 2011

68. Ibid.; this point repeatedly came up during conversations between the governor and SOFs during the winter 

of 2011–12 (author’s observation during the meetings).

69. Interview, Halim Fidai, December 11, 2011. 
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70. Given that the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) relies on incident attacks, the presence of the AP3 

likely provided more targets to insurgents and could explain the contradiction between statistical and narrative data (see Lefèvre 2010, 12).

71. Hizb-e-Islami affiliated factions in the president’s office, notably Chief of Staff Abdul Karim Khurram, 

have been accused of supporting Hizb-e-Islami in Wardak. 

72. Interview, U.S. Army Special Forces officer, Maidanshahr, Wardak, December 11, 2012. 

73. On February 6, 2012, Fidai and U.S. military officials held an information operations ceremony in 

Sayedabad to introduce the ALP program in Sayedabad.

74. Interview, member of Wardak provincial council, Kabul, December 29, 2012.

75. In September 2012, Halim Fidai was replaced as governor of Wardak.

76. In his letter to Karzai, Fidai mentions a figure of 405 ANP personnel in Wardak, possibly referring to ANP 

soldiers, excluding support staff. Fidai’s letter to Karzai, March 12, 2012, on file with the author.

77. Interview, senior government officials and local journalists, Wardak, Maidanshahr and Kabul, August 

2012.

78. Ibid.

79. Fidai denied allegations that he had provided support to Hizb-e-Islami commanders in Nerkh against 

Taliban insurgents. He described his proposed solution to local security in the spring of 2012 in more 

grassroots terms, modeled on the Arab Spring social movements led by the youth and not by armed commanders. It was supposed to be a province-wide campaign, not just restricted to Nerkh. He claims his 

attempt to bring security to Wardak through popular participation has been misrepresented by his critics 

(interview, Halim Fidai, August 13, 2012). A similar uprising was to take place in the neighboring province 

of Ghazni, but was badly timed and, due to interference from the central government, backfired and only 

took off in Andar district. After almost a year, the uprising in Andar, originally led by a few Hizb-e-Islami 

commanders who broke ranks with their Taliban allies—and was described by U.S. military commanders as 

a game changer—petered out. Under intense pressure from the Taliban, who killed most of the original 

leaders and sixty members of the uprising, the rebels gave up the pretense of independence and accepted help 

from the government and the U.S. military by enrolling in the ALP program (on the Andar uprising, see 

Trofimov 2013).

80. The Taliban and Hizb-e-Islami in Nerkh district accuse each other of being someone else’s puppets or spies 

in what seem like a competition over which group has greater legitimacy to wage jihad against foreign forces 

and the Western-supported Karzai government. In August 2011, the Taliban explained their military 

campaign against Hizb-e-Islami in Nerkh by noting that “the Emirate [Taliban] has decided to fight 

Hezb-e Islami because they are pro-government and get provoked into action [against us] by the government,” said Mullah Bashir, the Taliban’s third-highest representative in the mainly Pashtun-populated 

Nerkh district. “We give priority to killing Hizb people over Americans because they are obstructing us and 

preventing us from waging jihad” (Tabee 2011). These internal struggles between Taliban and Hizb-eIslami help shatter the myth of a unified insurgency.

81. Arming one group in this context can significantly upset the balance of power and lead to new rounds of 

clashes among rival groups, set off by a negative spiral of competitive rearmament or alternatively defection 

to the Taliban to secure protection and support.

82. Interview, provincial council member, Maidanshahr, Wardak, April 17, 2013. 

83. Despite a number of investigations by government and ISAF/NATO command in Kabul as well as human 

rights organizations and media, it has not been possible to establish not so much what happened, which is 

well documented, but which force or forces perpetrated the abuses. The secretive nature of the forces 

responsible for these abuses, which happened over five months in the Nerkh and Maidanshahr districts, 

point to the involvement of CIA and what the Afghan government referred to as parallel security structures, 

meaning Afghan militias trained and financed by the CIA for counterterrorism operations which remained 

unaccountable to Afghan authorities. Interviews, human rights activists, journalists, government officials, 

security analysts, and local power brokers in Wardak and Kabul, April 2013. 

84. Local power brokers affiliated with Hizb-e-Islami privately complained about the presence and aggressive 

targeting of Hizb-e-Islami fighters in Nerkh and Maidanshahr districts, areas that are under government 

control. Instead their preference was to have SOFs move into more remote areas of Wardak, such as upper 

Nerkh valley where the Taliban had a more prominent presence. In other words, Hizb-e-Islami tried to get 

SOFs off their backs and direct their firepower against their Taliban rivals. Interview, local analyst, Kabul, 

April 24, 2013. 

85. The statement warned that “if the Americans once again do not honour their commitments and keep on 

disobeying, then this will be considered as an occupation, and they may expect to see a reaction to their 

action.” What was more striking about the statement was the fact that “it referred to American forces in 

Afghanistan as ‘infidels,’ echoing language used by the Taliban” (Nordland 2013a).

86. For the first time, civilian casualties declined by 12 percent in 2012. However, this trend did not last for 

long. In April 2013, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported an upsurge 
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in conflict-related civilian casualties. Security data released by ANSO for the first quarter of 2013 also 

showed a dramatic increase in violence, up by 47 percent from 2012. With the transition of security 

responsibilities from NATO to Afghan forces, the casualty rates of ANSF increased by 40 percent during 

this period. Some 73 percent of all insurgent attacks were directed against Afghan forces versus 4 percent 

against foreign forces (Nordland 2013b). 

87. In one incident, a local Pashtun villager and his university companion were shot and killed by the AP3 on 

the Maidenshahr-Nerkh road. Despite many attempts by the victim’s father, a local farmer, the culprits have 

not been prosecuted for the crime. The commander of the AP3 whose unit shot the young man was released 

after the district governor of Jalrez intervened in the case. Despite receiving assurances from the governor, 

the father of the victim lost all hope of seeing his son’s killers behind bars.

88. Author’s observation during a meeting between Afghan officials and U.S. military officers in early February 

2012 in Maidanshahr. Members of the Wardak Provincial Council expressed these views in conversation 

with General Ali Shah Ahmadzai, the head of the ALP in the Ministry of Interior in Kabul.

89. Interview, commander Mohammad Gul Torakai, September 13, 2011.

90. Interview, security analyst, Kabul, November 7, 2012. 

91. Interviews, ISAF officials, Kabul, November 5, 2012.

92. Interviews, victims and members of their families, provincial council members, local journalists, human 

rights activists, and government officials in Kabul, Wardak and Kabul, April 19–25, 2013. 

93. The districts are Puli Khumri, Baghlan-e-Jadid, Dahanan-e-Ghori, Dushi, Tala-wa-Barfak, Khenjan, 

Andarab, Khost-wa-Fereng, Burka, Nahrin, Puli Hesar, Jalga, Deh Saleh, Fereng-wa-Gharu, and 

Guzargah-e-Noor. During the 1980s, as the mujahideen increased pressure on the Soviet and Afghan forces 

in Baghlan’s capital Baghlan-e-Jadid, the provincial capital was relocated to Puli Khumri where it has 

remained to the present day. Although Governor Juma Khan Hamdard tried to relocate it to Baghlan-eJadid, he faced stiff resistance from Andarabi strongmen who felt secure in Puli Khumri and did not want 

to relocate to a majority Pashtun district. The population figure of 741,690 is based on 2003 CSO/UNFPA 

statistics. According to Afghanistan Statistics Office, the population of Baghlan in 2011–12 was approximately 848,000. The population is believed to be composed of Tajik (52 percent), Pashtun (20 percent), 

Hazara (15 percent), Uzbek (9 percent). The Tajik affiliated with Jamiat-e-Islami dominate the mountainous 

south, east, and west of the province while Pashtuns mostly loyal to Hizb-e-Islami live in the agriculturally 

fertile valleys in central and northern Baghlan. The Ismaili community of Sayed Mansoor Naderi dominates 

the Doshi district, and Uzbeks loyal to Junbish-e-Mili are in northern Baghlan. 

94. Two additional districts emerged from the southern Andarab district, Pul-e-Hisar and Deh Saleh in 2003. 

Commanders from Baghlan are mostly affiliated with Jamiat-e-Islami and include Mustafa and Rasoul 

Andarabi (also known as Rasoul Mohsini), Kabir Andarabi, and Haji Loqa. Commander Mustafa 

Andarabi, a key power broker and a close ally of then defense minister and current vice president Fahim 

Qasim, assumed military control in the province by taking over command of the army’s 20th division, which 

was later disbanded under the DDR program. Mustafa subsequently joined the Ministry of Interior, where 

today, as a police general, he occupies a senior position as deputy head of operations. Another jihadi commander from Andarab, Haji Loqa, was made the provincial police chief.

95. Under Mir Alam, 75 percent of district police chiefs were followers of Jamiat and loyal to the Andarabi 

faction. According to U.S. Embassy estimates, the breakdown of senior leadership in the Baghlan police was 

86 percent Tajik and 14 percent Pashtun (2005).

96. Alam Jan is a former Hizb-e-Islami commander and currently deputy of Provincial Council. He is a rival of 

Rasoul Mohsini in the council. The current tashkil of ANP in Baghlan is around twenty-five hundred 

policemen. Interview, Puli Khumri police officer, Baghlan, June 2012.

97. Interview, Alam Jan, provincial council member, May 18, 2012, Baghlan-e-Jadid, Baghlan. According to 

Alam Jan, of the total police tashkil of 1,800, only 30 were from the local Pashtun community; the rest were 

predominantly Tajiks of Northern Alliance faction. According to another account, 90 percent of the ANP 

were non-Pashtuns, mostly Andarabi Tajiks (Hewad 2012).

98. Former Northern Alliance defense minister and current vice president Fahim Qasim’s close ally Mustafa 

Andarabi was himself disqualified from standing in 2005 parliamentary elections because of links to illegal 

armed groups; his brothers Rasoul and Azim Mohseni went on to win seats in provincial council and parliament respectively. Because of support from Northern Alliance power brokers in the central government and 

links to regional Jamiat strongmen such as Governor Atta of Balkh, Mustafa and Rasoul Mohsini have 

emerged as powerful figures in Baghlan’s politics. 

99. As noted by Alam Jan, provincial council member, the Pashtuns do not consider themselves represented in 

the local power structure and as a result feel that they had never before been reduced to such a pitiful position 

or treated so poorly (interview, Baghlan-e-Jadid, May 18, 2012). 

100. Prominent Pashtun power brokers around Karzai have been accused of supporting local Hizb-e-Islami 

factions and treating them as natural allies against Jamiat factions from Andarab with links to Panjshiri 

strongman, Vice President Fahim Qasim, and regional heavyweight Governor Atta Mohammad Noor.
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101. Karzai apparently supported Amir Gul and used him as a political tool to contain the power of the Andarabi 

clan. In 2006, Karzai made a personal intervention to get him released from U.S. detention in Bagram and 

reinstated him as district governor of Baghlan-e-Jadid. Amir Gul’s roller coaster history illustrates the point 

that local power brokers ostensibly loyal to the central government can sometime turn rogue when their 

power is threatened. In October 2012, it was revealed that men belonging to Amir Gul and his district police 

chief, commander Mohammad Kamin, with strong affiliation to Jamiat and Fahim, had shot and killed 

three ANSF officers in Baghlan-e-Jadid. When the central government replaced the police chief and sent 

in a replacement, his convoy came under attack from Amir Gul’s men. Although the Ministry of Interior 

issued arrest warrants against them, Kamin refused to surrender to the new district police chief, and Amir 

Gul reportedly stayed at a government guesthouse in Kabul under the protection of Fahim Qasim. 

Telephone interview, resident of Puli Khumri, April 29, 2013. 

102. The relations between Andarabi strongmen and the governor were so strained, notably over the governor’s 

plans to relocate the provincial capital to Baghlan-e-Jadid, that according to one witness present in a meeting 

held in the central mosque in Puli Khumri where Juma Khan was speaking, after some heated arguments, 

the Andarabi commanders present reached for their weapons and threatened him with forced removal. Only 

when the governor backed down was an armed clash avoided. He was soon ousted from power following 

mass demonstrations allegedly encouraged by local strongmen (interview, Baghlan journalist, Kabul, 

November 28, 2011).

103. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, none of the Baghlan members of parliament belonged to Hizb-eIslami—an outcome that further boosted the power of Jamiat factions.

104. Weaker actors involved in contest for power at the local level have a tendency to reach out to and invite 

outside actors with superior military resources to undermine their rivals. Forming alliances with weaker 

factions against stronger ones as entry into local power struggles has allowed the Taliban to consolidate their 

position in the north.

105. The Taliban’s military campaign is usually preceded by infiltration of new areas as “armed men initially 

came from outside,” in particular from Pakistan and southern Afghanistan, to carry out “armed propaganda” 

and prepare the ground for recruiting local men into Taliban ranks before commencing military operations 

(Giustozzi and Reuter 2011).

106. Interview, Mullah Alam, Puli Khumri, Baghlan, October 18, 2011, and Kabul, May 28, 2012.

107. Ibid. Mullah Alam is a former Hizb-e-Islami commander from Dand-e-Ghori area of Puli Khumri. He 

took part in the initial struggle to remove Sayed Mansoor and Sayed Jaffar’s Ismaili militias from Puli 

Khumri, an outcome that empowered the Andarabi clan. Mullah Alam’s take on these events was corroborated by a local journalist. Interview, local journalist, Kabul, November 28, 2011.

108. Interview, Amir Gul, May 20, 2012. Amir Gul’s entire police force numbered around seventy policemen 

with the task of securing 384 villages and a population of more than half a million.

109. According to the U.S. embassy in Kabul, the Hungarian troops were “looking to do their short stints in 

Afghanistan and get back home unscathed” (2009a). The UNAMA mission in Baghlan was so underresourced that ISAF considered it a joke. International development assistance through the Hungarian PRT 

was minimal—annual developmental expenditure was around $3 million.

110. However, the status quo changed with the arrival of SOFs in late 2010 as they intensified night raids and 

kill-capture operations. Therefore, the impression of ISAF being irrelevant changed as direct attacks against 

Taliban leadership increased, which considerably weakened them in both Baghlan and Kunduz.

111. Interview, General Abdul Rahman Rahimi, former police chief of Baghlan, Kabul, December 4, 2011. 

112. It is important to differentiate here between the original use of the term arbaki, linked to notions of community defense in border regions, and the way the term has more recently been used, particularly in the 

north, to cover all militia-like armed groups. Arbaki in this second sense, which applies to its use here, has 

very negative connotations. As Tariq Osman (2008) notes, in the former sense being an arbaki member was 

an honor, but belonging to a militia was a source of shame.

113. The fighters initially denied they belonged to Hizb-e-Islami. General Rahimi also insisted they were local 

villagers fed up with Taliban abuse and eager to see the Taliban out of their villages, so they asked the 

government for weapons and supplies to confront the Taliban. Some locals considered them mere criminals 

out to access government resources. When their request for military assistance was denied, they decided to 

adopt the Hizb-e-Islami label in the hope of attracting resources from Hizb, which never materialized. 

Information extracted from a number of interviews between October 2011 and November 2012 with 

UNAMA, local commanders, local journalists, provincial council members, and General Rahimi.

114. Although the peace and reintegration program had been launched, at the time, no infrastructure in Baghlan 

to support insurgents surrendering to government existed. The surrendered Hizb fighters were accommodated under the peace and reintegration program, their weapons were taken from them, and for a few months 

they received food support from UNAMA and U.S. CERP fund.

115. Interview, UNAMA political affairs officer in Baghlan, Kabul, January 23, 2012. According to a Spiegel

report, commander Sher asked the Germans for weapons: “‘We need more weapons,’ said Sher.... When 

Sher’s men surrendered two months ago, they had to relinquish their weapons. But the government did not 
Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan

USIP.ORG 53

return weapons to all of them. ‘If we don’t have weapons, the Taliban will slit our throats,’ said Sher” 

(Demmer 2010). Lack of adequate support from government was a common complaint heard from AP3 

commanders in Wardak

116. Interview, UNAMA political affairs officer in Baghlan, January 23, 2012.

117. For a detailed account of the battle of Shahabuddin, see the Spiegel magazine coverage (Demmer 2010). A 

combined force of 250 German and Afghan regular troops were prevented by Taliban from coming to the 

assistance of the arbaki fighters after the Taliban had blown up a key river crossing point to Shahabuddin. 

Unable to reach the village, German forces called in a NATO air strike that killed Sher. In the concluding 

hours of the battle, the Taliban had called on Sher to surrender. Some locals believed the air strike was meant 

to prevent Sher’s surrender to the Taliban rather than to repulse it.

118. The incident is an indication of the way things in Baghlan might look after SOFs—the main military support to government-backed militias—withdraw and the local security force, because of conflictual relations 

with government-backed militias, decides to withhold military support when it is needed. Alongside regular 

pay, this will be the single most critical factor for the viability of government-backed militias in the future.

119. Sher’s brother, Nazar Gul, has been given a separate base in Shahabuddin.

120. Interview, Abdul Rahman Rahimi, December 4, 2011.

121. UNAMA, on the other hand, received positive reports about Sher. It is possible that accusation of human 

rights against him might have been politically motivated. 

122. Interview, Abdul Rahman Rahimi, December 4, 2011. 

123. A long-term local observer confirmed that the “SOFs did most of the job. They operated in small teams. 

They definitely managed to secure the area. In Baghlan-e-Jadid there was a series of joint military 

operations and then Afghan-led operations ... in February 2011 they established three check posts in 

Baghlan-e-Jadid ... which was a very positive step” and helped turn the security situation around (interview, UNAMA political affairs officer in Baghlan, January 23, 2012).

124. The point about election-related instability came up repeatedly in conversation with local respondents. It is 

an indication of the fragility of political stability at the local level, whilst diplomats and politicians in Kabul 

and Western capitals insist on holding elections in a contested environment where thousands of armed 

groups continue the struggle for power and resources.

125. The German commander in Baghlan referred to Sher “as an APRP, an insurgent who has surrendered and 

is now participating in the Afghan Peace and Reintegration Program.... Sher and his men are holding the 

position in Shahabuddin.... It’s a pilot project” (Demmer 2010). 

126. According to UNAMA estimates, the ALP numbered 147 in Dand-e-Shahabuddin, 153 in Dand-e-Ghori, 

and 25 in Chashmay-e-Sher (interview, UNAMA political affairs officer in Baghlan, January 23, 2012).

127. Interview, U.S. special forces commander Dahana-e-Ghori, Baghlan, May 17, 2012.

128. Interview, Nurul Haq, Puli Khumri, Baghlan, May 16, 2012. The widespread reporting of human rights 

abuses by HRW in 2011, combined with a hostile attitude from provincial police chief Assadullah Shirzad 

(who has registered more than seventy criminal cases against Nurul Haq) and the continued animosity 

Shirzad faces from the Andarabi faction led by provincial council chief Rasoul Mohsini, led to Nurul Haq’s 

being pushed to one side. The U.S. special operations forces also withdrew their protection. Nurul Haq 

remains on the scene in a state of uncertainty. 

129. Interview, Rasoul Mohsini, head of provincial council, Puli Khumri, Baghlan, October 18, 2011.

130. An important factor in Nurul Haq’s continued hostility toward local government officials relates to rumors 

of a plan afoot to arrest him and try him for the crimes he is alleged to have perpetrated as arbaki and ALP 

commander, which were amply documented in a 2011 Human Rights Watch report.

131. The dispute involved a young boy, allegedly employed by the ALP member for sexual services. He was 

forcibly taken to the ANP base that day. When the ALP member demanded his return, he was shot by ANP 

guards. 

132. Interviews, local journalist, Kabul, November 28, 2011, March 31, 2012. 

133. When the ALP was first approved in August 2010 by the Afghan government, it was stipulated that the 

program would run from two to five years. In early 2012, the former commander of the ISAF, General John 

Allen, first indicated that the ISAF was considering making the ALP permanent. In February 2013, the 

Pentagon revealed plans to expand the program from thirty thousand to forty-five thousand and extend its 

mandate for another five years, possibly until 2024. 

134. Interview, UNAMA political affairs officer in Baghlan, Kabul, January 23, 2012. 

135. Interview, U.S. Special Forces commander, Dahana-e-Ghori, Baghlan, May 17, 2012.

136. Interview, Munshi Majid, governor of Baghlan, Puli Khumri, Baghlan, October 19, 2011.

137. Interview, Puli Khumri local elder, Baghlan, May 16, 2012.

138. Ibid.

139. The population is Pashtun (34 percent), Uzbek (27 percent), Tajiks (20 percent), Turkmen (9.4 percent), and 

Arab (4.6 percent and Hazara (3.5 percent), in addition to small groups of Baluch, Pahsai, and Nuristani 
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(Wörmer 2012). The districts are Imam Sahib, Qala-e-Zal, Chahardara, Dasht-e-Archi, Aliabad, 

Khanabad, and central Kunduz.

140. Junbish-e-Mili under Abdul Rashid Dostum is an Uzbek political party mostly active in northern 

Afghanistan. Its military roots go back to the 1980s in Jawzjan province. The Uzbek militias under Dostum 

were set up as a self-defense unit to guard the Shiberghan gas fields. By early 1990, the small self-defense 

militia had grown into a formidable conventional force of thousands of fighters, making up one of the largest 

and most cohesive army divisions at the time. It was a remarkable journey for a small militia unit to assume 

the role and function of a full army division, at a time when the rest of the army was disintegrating into 

smaller ethnic militias. Dostum’s influence in northern Afghanistan had grown so much that when in 1992 

his militias defected to the mujahideen, it finally completed the slow disintegration of Najibullah’s leftist 

government and opened the way for the 1990s civil war (on Junbish, see Giustozzi 2009b).

141. For DDR and the subsequent DIAG program, see Stapleton 2010.

142. The number is derived from Peavey 2011. A study done in 2011 by Max Planck Institute for the 

Netherlands embassy in Kabul mentions a figure of 1,810 ANP tashkil in Kunduz, based on information 

from EUPOL. 

143. The Taliban were pushed back from the districts of central Kunduz, Khanabad, Chahardara, Imam Sahib, 

and Qala-e-Zal.

144. An anonymous international source in Kabul reported the alleged payoff. The information was extracted 

based on months of interviews by the organization in question in Kunduz and Kabul. Although the amount 

seems small, it was mainly used as a mobilization strategy, given that most commanders had arms and 

ammunition and did not need government support. Once constituted, the militias supplemented their 

income through local taxation and extortion, which has been widely reported and covered in detail by a 2011 

Human Rights Watch report. 

145. On the role of U.S. special operations forces in Kunduz, see Giustozzi and Reuter 2011.

146. In February 2013, UNAMA, in its 2012 annual report Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, mentioned 

230 CIP members in Qala-e-Zal, far outnumbering the number of ANP in the district, which was around 

twenty-five to thirty-five (UNAMA 2013, 50).

147. Karzai included other local defense units set up by the ISAF in his order of December 25, 2011, regarding 

“‘the disbandment of ISAF/ISAF Special Forces–established local defense initiatives such as that of the 

Critical Infrastructure Project in 2011 in parts of Kunduz, Balkh, and Faryab provinces; of the Intermediate 

Security for Critical Infrastructure in Helmand; and of Community-Based Security Solutions in Kunar, 

Nangarhar, and Nuristan provinces. On January 24, 2012, ISAF Joint Command issued a directive ordering 

the removal and transition of all CBSS groups’” (UNAMA 2013, 45). According to the ISAF, by December 

31, all community-based defense groups, which operated outside the structure of the Afghan forces had been 

disbanded and most of its members then transitioned into the ALP.

148. Interview with U.S. special operations officers in Nawabad, Chahardara district, Kunduz, June 11, 2012.

149. Interview with member of parliament from Qala-e-Zal district, Kabul, April 16, 2013. 

150. Local commanders sought to include Khanabad in the ALP, but these efforts did not bear fruit, which might 

explain the extent of rent-seeking from farmers by arbaki militias in Khanabad. Qala-e-Zal and Aliabad and 

Chahardara were included in the CIP program, but only Chahardara was initially included in the ALP force 

structure.

151. In February 2013, UNAMA stated that some time between April and September 2012, the CIP units in 

Chahardara and Aliabad were converted into ALP. In the north and northeast, five CIP groups were disbanded, and nine hundred of its members were converted into ALP in the absence of any vetting process 

(UNAMA 2013, 45–46).

152. Interview, Hamdullah Danishi, deputy governor, Kunduz, January 11, 2012.

153. Interview, provincial ALP commander, Kunduz, June 10, 2012.

154. According to one police informant, some 120 ALP members are in Gore Tepa and the Telawka area of 

central Kunduz, divided into nine to twelve men units under a commander. The overall commander of ALP 

forces in central Kunduz is Hafiz Cherik, a former communist regime militia commander who joined Jamiat 

in 1992. Like other arbaki commanders, he fought against Taliban insurgents after being armed by NDS in 

2009. He reportedly has strong links to Mir Alam. When U.S. special operations forces began implementing the ALP in Kunduz, his militias were incorporated into the force in central Kunduz.

155. Interview, ANP officer responsible for ALP logistics in central Kunduz, June 14, 2012.

156. Interview, Ala Nazar, ALP commander in Alchin, central Kunduz, Kunduz, June 14, 2012. Ala Nazar 

stated in an interview that his force is entirely Uzbek because he trusts only his family members and associates. He says he invited some Pashtuns to join his unit, but they refused because most of them have sympathy 

for the Taliban and would rather fight infidels than be in their service. His Uzbek unit operates in a village 

of a thousand families of which about a hundred are rich landed Pashtuns. The relative size of Uzbeks and 

their dominance of the ALP could explain why the relatively small number of local Pashtuns prefers to align 

with the Taliban, in that they may perceive the Uzbek ALP with suspicion and seek protection in Taliban 
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USIP.ORG 55

ranks. Most Uzbeks in the village, like Ala Nazar, were landless farmers. In their new role as ALP members, 

however, they were ruling over their former overlords.

157. Interview, Wazhma Frogh, women’s rights activist, Kabul, November 8, 2012.

158. A traditional practice involving the exchange of money or young women to settle a dispute. Under the 2009 

Elimination of Violence Against Women law, the practice of baad is illegal. 

159. Under the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program, the government established a provincial peace 

council to facilitate the reintegration of insurgents.

160. Interview, Wazhma Frogh, November 8, 2012.

161. Interview, senior provincial council member, Kunduz, January 10, 2012.

162. This of course has a long provenance. Similar efforts can be found in the late colonial wars of the 1950s and 

1960s: “With statistical inquiries into development efforts, mathematical calculations of enemy troop 

numbers, and multicolour diagrams, the leadership of colonial armies tried—above all when compelled to 

justify their exploding budgets—to persuasively ‘prove’ their progress, which naturally become apparent over 

longer time spans” (Feichtinger, Malinowski, and Richards 2012, 44).

163. As a deputy ISAF commander noted at the end of his tour of duty, it was necessary to “leave Afghanistan to 

the Afghans” (Rodriguez 2011, 45).

164. Even as late as 2011, the military was still talking about “turning the corner”: “The summer of 2012 will see 

us move into the build-and-transition phase, when we should see significant gains in Afghan governance 

and the capabilities of the Afghan National Security Forces” (Bolduc 2011, 24). Clearly, the summer of 2012 

did not see significant gains in Afghan governance.

165. For example, Jim Gant, in “One Tribe at a Time,” recounts in glowing terms the Tribal Engagement 

Strategy. Unwittingly, however, his account also exposes the deficiencies of COIN strategy. For example, he 

explains how forging strong contacts with a particular community had yielded important intelligence, but at 

the same time, this close relationship had made the tribe a target for Hizb-e-Islami attacks. Gant’s response 

had been to “give them as many weapons and as much ammo as I could get my hands on”—in other words 

the COIN strategy endangered the villagers and prompted a spiral of rearmament (2009, 22). Gant’s account 

also shows how U.S. forces were drawn into local disputes, including a conflict over land between highland 

and lowland Pashtuns. This is one of the impacts of becoming “American tribesmen,” or “bonding with the 

village, one tribe to another” (2009, 18). That McChrystal and Petraeus were impressed by and widely circulated this piece tells us something about how little the U.S. military have succeeded in breaking down the 

“mud curtain” to understand local politics and culture—in spite of the investment in infrastructure and 

analysis to extract data from the village level—including Human Terrain Teams, village stability coordination centers, district augmentation teams, and key leader engagements—to make Afghan society more legible and therefore governable.

166. “Without imposing a democratic government, we bring democratic principles that appeal to Afghan culture 

in the rural areas. The principles reflect traditional Afghan and Islamic values associated with the prosperity 

for their families” (Bolduc 2011, 27). In a similar vein, Gant argues that “tribes by nature are conservative. 

They hate change and don’t change” (2009, 14); “the tribesmen is less concerned about “country”—which 

for him is almost irrelevant—“and more concerned about protecting the domain of his family, his customs, 

his tribal leadership, his warrior pride” (Grant 2009, 23).

167. The exception is Hazaras in Jalrez district, where a clear incentive existed to arm against the marauding 

Kuchi (nomad) Pashtun seasonal migrants.

168. This phenomenon can be observed in Nerkh district, where villages remain divided between Hizb-e-Islami 

and Taliban, with frequent armed clashes between them. Joining a government-backed militia would simply 

inflame local power relations, which some Pashtuns have resisted, which explains why so few Pashtuns came 

forward to join the AP3 and ALP.

169. “In both Afghanistan and Iraq, regime protection, counterinsurgency, and counter terrorism are taking 

precedence over protection of the public” (Rosenau 2008, 12). 

170. Although in another report it was stated that U.S. troop casualties hit a four-year low of only one casualty 

in the previous month, 1,100 Afghan troops were killed over the previous six months, an average of more 

than 180 a month. About 460 of those killed were national army soldiers, the rest primarily police forces 

(Arian 2013).

171. Interview, ISAF officials, Kabul, November 2012.

172. For example, seventeen Taliban commanders and dozens of fighters were killed between December 2009 

and October 2010 in Kunduz province. Under McChrystal and later Petraeus, ISAF’s kill-capture operations soared dramatically: from one hundred to five hundred a month in 2009 and to a thousand a month in 

June 2010. According to the ISAF, 365 insurgent leaders were killed between May and August 2010 

(Giustozzi and Reuter 2011). In terms of security trends, the ANSO data from 2009 and 2010 in Wardak 

shows that insurgent attacks increased during this period but declined by 35 percent by the end of 2012. 

According to an interview in Kabul with a security analyst in November 2012, despite the decline in overall 

attacks, 90 percent of all insurgent attacks in Wardak were concentrated in Sayedabad on the 
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Kabul-Kandahar highway. Insurgent attacks nationwide declined by more than a quarter in 2012, partly 

indicating the success of U.S. special operations forces against Taliban commanders. 

173. Telephone interview with Colonel Donald Bolduc, deputy commander of NATO Special Operations 

Component Command-Afghanistan, London, November 15, 2012.

174. Bolduc was one of the founders of the ALP: “We have been directed to operate in key rural areas, secure 

them, hold them, expand VSO and develop the ALP to facilitate the hold phase of the strategy so that we 

may progress into the build phase” (Bolduc 2011, 26).

175. Promoted to the rank of general in 2011, Abdul Raziq is the provincial police chief in Kandahar.

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About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan 

institution established and funded by Congress. Its goals are to 

help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, promote postconflict 

peacebuilding, and increase conflict-management tools, capacity, and 

intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering 

others with knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct 

involvement in conflict zones around the globe.

Chairman of the Board: J. Robinson West

Vice Chairman: George E. Moose

President: Jim Marshall

Executive Vice President: Kristin Lord

Chief Financial Officer: Michael Graham

Board of Directors

J. Robinson West (Chair), Chairman, PFC Energy, Washington, D.C. • 

George E. Moose (Vice Chair), Adjunct Professor of Practice, The George 

Washington University, Washington, D.C. • Judy Ansley, Former Assistant 

to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor under George W. 

Bush, Washington, D.C. • Eric Edelman, Hertog Distinguished Practitioner 

in Residence, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International 

Studies, Washington, D.C. • Joseph Eldridge, University Chaplain and 

Senior Adjunct Professorial Lecturer, School of International Service, 

American University • Stephen J. Hadley, Principal, RiceHadleyGates, 

LLC, Washington, D.C. • Kerry Kennedy, President, Robert F. Kennedy 

Center for Justice and Human Rights, Washington, D.C. • Ikram U. Khan, 

President, Quality Care Consultants, LLC, Las Vegas, Nev. • Stephen D. 

Krasner, Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations, Stanford 

University, Palo Alto, Calif. • John A. Lancaster, Former Executive 

Director, International Council on Independent Living, Potsdam, N.Y. • 

Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor of Law, George Mason University, Fairfax, Va. 

• Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice President, Leadership Conference 

on Civil and Human Rights, Washington, D.C.

Members Ex Officio

John Kerry, Secretary of State • Kathleen Hicks, Principal Deputy Under 

Secretary of Defense for Policy • Gregg F. Martin, Major General, U.S. 

Army; President, National Defense University • Jim Marshall, President, 

United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting)
2 Looking for Justice United States Institute of Peace • 2301 Constitution ave., nw • Washington, DC 20037 • usip.org 

Much international effort and funding have focused on building up and bureaucratizing the means of violence in Afghanistan. At the same time, a parallel set of government and 

NATO experiments have been undertaken in arming local 

defense forces under the Afghan Local Police (ALP) program 

to fight the insurgency and provide security at the local level. 

This report focuses on the role and impact of the ALP on 

security and political dynamics in the context of ongoing 

counterinsurgency and stabilization operations and the projected drawdown of international troops. Detailed case studies show the mixed and often perverse effects of the ALP 

program. In view of these findings, it is recommended that 

the program should not be expanded any further, that there 

be stronger state oversight and support, and that mediumto long-term plans should be developed to facilitate the 

ALP’s absorption into the Afghan National Police. 

Related Links 

■ Armed Groups Maintaining Law and Order: Dealing with Reality by Bruce 

Oswald (Peace Brief, May 2013)

■ Police Transition in Afghanistan by Donald J. Planty and Robert M. Perito 

(Special Report, February 2013)

■ Lessons from Afghanistan’s History for the Current Transition and Beyond by 

William Byrd (Special Report, September 2012)

■ Afghanistan’s Civil Order Police by Robert M. Perito (Special Report, May 2012)

■ Myths and Misconceptions in the Afghan Transition by Shahmahmood 

Miakhel and Noah Coburn (Peace Brief, April 2012)

■ Afghanistan’s Police by Robert M. Perito (Special Report, August 2009)

Peaceworks • JANUARY 2014 • no. 90