• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

AFGHANISTAN: Focus on the new national army

KABUL, 5 June 2003 (IRIN) - Pte Rahman Jan, aged 24, sweats as he is drilled under the bright sun on the dusty parade ground of the Kabul Military Training Centre (KMTC). "I will fight to my last breath to defend my country," he told IRIN in the capital, Kabul.

Jan is one of the 4,000 soldiers now serving in the new Afghan National Army (ANA), which may change the course of Afghanistan's history by bringing about stability, protecting the country from foreign occupation and interference, and ensuring that its new political system survives through storms of uncertainty.

"Our wishes have come true and we will try to give our best to this army," Jan, who fought for years in the Afghan civil war, said.

Before joining the ANA, the ethnic Pashtun soldier was a guard at the presidential palace in the capital, Kabul, working for a mujahidin commander. He is saving his monthly salary of US $50 to take to his ageing parents and five siblings in the central province of Vardak.

With a population of 26 million, Afghanistan now has about 200,000 men under arms, some 170,000 of whom are registered with the defence ministry. Most of them, however, are in the provinces and controlled by regional strongmen. These men, who nominally form the Afghan army, are in reality the private militias of warlords, more often engaging in fighting against rival factions rather than promoting peace.

Experts believe that ensuring security for the country's reconstruction needs an army loyal to the central government. "The major challenge is to create a military loyal to the state," Ali Ahmad Jalai, the interior minister and a former army colonel, wrote in a recent research paper on the ANA.

The spokesman of the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, Col Roger King, told IRIN that the 4,000 men of the ANA had been trained and organised into battalions. Another 700 are undergoing intensive training at the KMTC. Under US supervision, Afghan instructors are training the ANA's rank and file, while the British are training its non-commissioned officers and the French are training its commissioned officers.

"We believe that by the summer of next year we will have the central core of the new Afghan army trained and fielded. That will be between 9,000 and 12,000 soldiers," he said, adding that the ANA would then possess sufficient armoured capability, mechanised infantry and light infantry to enable it to extend its power into the volatile provinces beyond the confines of Kabul. He noted that Afghanistan would hold its first post-conflict elections in the summer of next year, and that the ANA would perform its role of assuring stability during the polls.

The ANA depends on donations for all its equipment, ranging from uniforms from Europe to weapons donated by former Soviet bloc countries. According to a framework discussed at a donor conference in Geneva last year, the ANA is to number 70,000 by 2010.

However, experts remain sceptical over the pace of the process. "Certainly there has to be an expansion in the amount of money currently dedicated to this programme," Mark Sedra, a researcher with the Bonn International Centre for Conversion (BICC), told IRIN from the former German capital. He pointed out that giving the new military a truly national character would require establishing military training centres in other regions. "You have to get away from this Kabul-centric approach," he said.

With the defence ministry in Kabul dominated by ethnic Tajiks of the Shura-ye Nazar component of the Northern Alliance, Sedra maintained that the BICC was concerned over the ethnic balance of the ANA. "From what we do know, there is a disproportionate number of Tajiks and a disproportionate number of Pashtuns in the new national army. We know this is a problem," he said. In a recent UN Security Council session on Afghanistan, reforms in the defence ministry and intelligence were urged.

Recruitment for the ANA has also been beset by problems, according to Sedra, who asserted that initially there had been a great deal of misinformation about conditions and length of service, and about pay. "In the beginning, that really hindered the process, and in the first two battalions there was a 40 percent desertion rate," he said.

Building a disciplined military within Afghanistan's tribally based society remains an historic challenge, according to Jalali. He said this was the fourth time in 150 years of its turbulent history that the country was reorganising its armed forces after their total disintegration resulting from foreign invasion or civil wars.

In 1879, King Amir Sher Ali Khan's army failed to survive the imperial British invasion of the country during the second Anglo-Afghan war. Then, after rebelling against the reformist King Amanullah Khan in 1929, the army disintegrated once again, remaining in tatters until it was gradually rebuilt with Soviet assistance. But after the fall of President Najibullah's regime in the spring of 1992, it again fell to pieces.

Now, however, despite challenges, US officials remain adamantly optimistic that the ANA will be a success. Col Kevin McDonnel, the commander of the US forces training it, told IRIN that before criticising, people needed to look at the realities on the ground.

"I am dealing with a population that has never in their lives, for the most part, seen peaceful coexistence, and that is only 30 percent literate in their own languages," he said.

McDonnel added that after decades of fighting, a new start had to be made from scratch. "We are starting off with different bench marks," he said, noting that part of the process was convincing Afghans that this could actually happen.

"We have ethnic groups here whose lineages have been fighting each other for 1,600 years, but now they form the same Afghan company."

The UN plans to start an ambitious Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme soon. Under this project around 100,000 combatants now belowing to different militias would either be absorbed into the military or be assisted in changing their livelihoods. Observers believe that a success or failure of this plan would also have far reaching consequences for the future of the ANA.

Gen Atiqullah Baryalai, the deputy defence minister and head of the commission for the creation and rehabilitation of the ANA, told IRIN that the government had proposed to the donors, mainly the UN and US, to start DDR for the militias and reform of the police in parallel with the creation of the ANA.

"Unfortunately, we are endeavouring to create a national army at a time when no step has been taken on wiping out local powers. In short, they [the local powers] are getting empowered while the ANA is in its infancy," he said.

However, Sedra pointed out that in this respect the recent agreement between the central government and the governors of the 12 provinces on handing over to the national exchequer in Kabul funds accruing from custom duties was an encouraging development. At a conference co-hosted by the US-led coalition in April, Afghan warlords and militia commanders agreed to cooperate with the central government on rebuilding the national army. That pledge would be put to the test when the DDR began, he predicted.

Although it has yet to be seriously tested in the battlefield, the ANA has received a very warm response from the Afghan population. "One of the main purposes of the national army as opposed to defending boundaries is to serve as a national symbol," Sedra maintained.

Meanwhile, back on the dusty parade ground at the KMTC, Lt Abdul Wasi is grooming his men for their passing-out parade. "Our duty is to rebuild our country now that it is free," he told IRIN. The 24-year-old ethnic Tajik from the Panjshir valley in the central province of Parvan, fought the hardline Taliban for years. "I want Afghan youth to join us. With unity and discipline in our ranks, our people can live a peaceful life," he said.

Themes: (IRIN) Conflict

[ENDS]

The material contained on this Web site comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post any item on this site, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All graphics and Images on this site may not be re-produced without the express permission of the original owner. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2003