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UN to look into US plan to train Afghan militia force

PLA Daily 2004-02-09

KABUL, Feb. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- The United Nations office here would look into a plan by US military authorities in Afghanistan to arm and train local militias for the ongoing war against remnants of the ousted Taliban, a spokesman said on Sunday.

"At this moment we are aware of the issue and there is something we will have to look into," David Singh of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) told a press briefing.

A US military spokesman said on Saturday that Washington had begun training and equipping a new Afghan militia force to help its hunting operations against the holdout of Taliban fighters and their al-Qaida allies.

The new militia force will be financed and equipped directly by the United States.

But the UN spokesman said that the war on terror in Afghanistan, being undertaken by the US-led coalition forces, was an initiative outside "our domain."

The US plan to train new Afghan militia troops was announced at a time while the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai is desperately trying to extend its authority throughout the country by building a 70,000-strong brand new army with US assistance.

Observers here feared that the new US plan would undermine an ongoing ambitious program to disarm all the existing militia forces in Afghanistan by Karzai's government, which has little sway over the country' vast rural areas.

Under the UN-backed nationwide disarmament program, the government is expected to demobilize over 100,000 former combatants and reintegrate them into civilian life within three years.