KABUL, Afghanistan — Taking a page from the successful experiment in Iraq, U.S. commanders and Afghan leaders are preparing to arm local militias to help in the fight against a resurgent Taliban. But along with hope, the move is raising fears that the new armed groups could push the country into a deeper bloodletting.
The militias will be deployed to help U.S. and Afghan security forces, which are stretched far and wide across the mountainous country. The first of the local defense forces are scheduled to begin operating early next year in Wardak province, an area just outside the capital where the Taliban have overrun most government authority.
If the experiment proves successful, similar militias will be set up rapidly across the country, senior U.S. and Afghan officials said.
The formation of Afghan militias comes on the heels of a similar undertaking in Iraq, where 100,000 Sunni gunmen, many of them former insurgents, have been placed on the government payroll. The Awakening Councils, as they are known, are credited by U.S. officials as one of the main catalysts behind the steep reduction in violence there.
But the plan is causing deep unease among many Afghans, who fear that Pashtun-dominated militias could get out of control, terrorize local populations and turn against the government. The Afghan government, aided by the Americans, has carried out several ambitious campaigns since 2001 to disarm militants and gather up their guns. A proposal to field local militias was defeated in the Afghan Senate in the fall.
“There will be fighting between Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns,” said Salih Mohammad Registani, a member of the Afghan parliament and an ethnic Tajik. Registani raised the specter of the Arbaki, a Pashtun-dominated militia turned loose on other Afghans early in the 20th century.
“A civil war will start very soon,” he said.
The plan, approved this month by President Hamid Karzai, is being pushed forward anyway, to help stem the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan. The proposal to field what amounts to lightly trained gunmen reflects the sense of urgency surrounding the fight against the Taliban, who were removed from power after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but who have staged a remarkable resurgence in recent years.
U.S. commanders say that while they would prefer to field Afghan army and police forces, they are simply not available.
“We don’t have enough police,” said Maj. Gen. Michael Tucker, deputy commander of U.S. forces in the country. “We don’t have time to get the police ready.”
One survey, by the International Council on Security and Development, found that the Taliban had established a permanent presence in 72 percent of Afghanistan, up from 54 percent a year ago.
In recent months, the Taliban has moved into the provinces around Kabul, including Wardak to its west. In addition to setting up the first local Afghan militias there, U.S. commanders are sending several hundred U.S. soldiers to the province, the first of whom already have arrived. Wardak province is bisected by the country’s national highway, which has been the scene of numerous ambushes of supply convoys by Taliban insurgents.
The plan for the militias coincides with the arrival of Gen. David Petraeus, who presided over the reduction in violence in Iraq and who has since become overall commander for U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the rest of the region. The Americans are sending 20,000 to 30,000 additional soldiers over the next year, in addition to the nearly 70,000 American and NATO soldiers who already are there.
