Military Review English Edition January-February 2014 | Page 30

political support for the Afghan mission at home, and
risk-averse behavior to make the war in Afghanistan
decidedly more kinetic. The district center of Chora,
just east of Shahid-e-Hasas, fell to the Taliban in
2006, was retaken, and almost fell again in 2007.
While the numbers of Taliban increased throughout
the province, their tactics, techniques, and procedures
also went through a small revolution. Taliban forces
became more disciplined, and the Taliban increased
their partnership with foreign fighters, who brought
special skills such as sniping, bomb making, and
leadership to the conflict as well as extra funding.
The first suicide vest and car bomb attack took place
in the provincial capital of Tarin Kowt in 2006. The
people of Shahid-e-Hasas felt these changes. Since
FOB Kaufman was manned with a small Special
Forces team and Afghan National Army soldiers, it
had enough men to have a presence in the district but
not enough to pacify it. With no security in the surrounding provinces and no local force to collaborate
with, the Special Forces team could not establish an
enduring security presence that would last beyond
their rotation or exist beyond sight of their base—the
team had to focus on fighting and survival. Afghan
National Police forces were largely from outside the
district, and the local population considered them as
being almost as foreign as U.S. troops. With no enduring local security or an ability to resist the Taliban,
local villagers tolerated the presence of the Islamists
or enlisted with them as a means of avoiding the
predatory behavior of Durrani government officials.
One Special Forces rotation in Shahid-e-Hasas in
2006, for example, had 22 casualties and 7 men killed
in action. While they made great gains in degrading
the insurgency, they were unable to defeat it. A new
approach was needed, but its form and substance was
still unknown.

Village Stability Operations and
Afghan Local Police
The idea of creating local protective forces answerable to community councils and nested within a
burgeoning official security structure had many
antecedents within Afghanistan, but it was the Iraq
War that proved its success. The Anbar Awakening in
western Iraq came about for several reasons—some
domestic, others international. Regardless, the result
of creating enduring local security through tribal
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groups trained by coalition forces, but focused exclusively on defensive operations in their own villages,
proved decisive in reducing instability and improving
security in the area. The Awakening forces worked
because they were vetted by community leaders
(e.g., sheiks). They operated in their own villages (no
concerns about leaving their families unprotected or
working in an unfamiliar area), were considered legitimate and were paid well (they were viewed as more
honorable and less abusive than the insurgency), and
they were trained by U.S. forces (this improved their
capability and their professionalism). This valuable
experience with recruiting, vetting, training, deploying, and sustaining Iraqi tribal forces answerable to
local communities and the Iraqi government informed
the Afghan Local Police initiative. However, other
attempts at creating such a force in Afghanistan in
th e past met with less than ideal results.

… creating enduring local
security through tribal groups
trained by coalition forces, but
focused exclusively on defensive operations in their own
villages, proved decisive…
Initial efforts to collaborate with local forces
against the Taliban began by working with warlords
and their militias that were supportive of GIRoA.
These forces were unaccountable to the people,
abusive of the population, and not representative of
community groups. Early efforts to build the ANP
mirrored this initial strategy, but the forces were
poorly trained, and with a restriction on the number
of ANP allowed, there were never enough to secure
local communities. The next step in the evolution of
providing local security was the creation of Afghan
National Auxiliary Police in 2006, but it too suffered
from the lack of local character in its forces (it was
a national program), an absence of community and
January-February 2014 MILITARY REVIEW