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Territorial Army

The Afghan Defense Ministry has planned to establish a Territorial Army within the insurgency-hit country's national army, to further tighten security across the Central Asian country. The main aim of the plan, expected to group 36,000 personnel, was to change the war situation from defensive to offensive, expand security throughout the volatile regions including highways and to protect key government establishments against the enemies,

Afghanistan’s ministry of defense announced 22 February 2018 the creation of a new militia force comprising about 36,000 men to defend areas that military-led operations have cleared of Taliban insurgents. The move came despite long-running accusations of rights abuses against the existing Afghan Local Police, which consists of local militias trained and paid by the U.S. military.

Defense Ministry spokesman, Dawlat Waziri, said in a brief statement the new force will consist of 7,500 officers of the Afghan National Army, or ANA, and 28,500 other personnel. The recruitments will be made from Afghan government-controlled areas where they ultimately will be deployed after undergoing military training to keep insurgents from staging a comeback. He emphasized that the new Afghan militia force being raised will work under the direct command and control of the defense ministry. Waziri did not say when the recruiting process will begin.

Presently over 190,000 soldiers served in the structures of the embattled Afghan National Army (ANA) which is tackling insurgents on multiple fronts across the country. “An order by the president has been issued and is being executed. Work is being done to draw up the structure. A commission has been tasked to work on it,” said defense ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri.

“The concern is what kind of people are going to be hired and recruited, what kind of people are going to be trained, what kind of people are going to be equipped and what kind of jobs skills will they have,” said military expert Mirza Mohammad Yarmand. “Such a plan will not be in the interests of Afghanistan - that we move towards building militia forces. People who are newly recruited will work in the interests of local lawbreakers, in the interest of politicians and members of parliament and they will consider only their own people,” another expert Mohammad Agul Mujahid said.

Patricia Gossman, senior Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch, was swift to criticize the announcement, saying accountability of forces operating outside the normal ANA structure has been a persistent problem. “What remains unclear is whether these recruits would come from existing militia forces, and if so, how the [Afghan] ministry would ensure that they would be held accountable,” noted Gossman told VOA. The New York-based watchdog has been closely monitoring and documenting past allegations of rights violations against Afghan militias.

Gossman noted that Afghan authorities have not explained what kind of “oversight mechanisms” will be put in place to hold members of the new militia force responsible in instances of abuses against civilian population. Allegations against ALP members included sexual abuse of boys. “What lessons has the Defense Ministry learned from the problems with the ALP? No one has really answered these questions,” she added.

Waziri said that members of the territorial army will be hired from among former soldiers and that the management and leadership issues will be tackled by them. “An incumbent officer of the national army will be hired as their commander. The defense ministry can keep him as the commander for one month, two months or five months or reshuffle him and replace him with someone else,” added Waziri.

According to the ministry of defense, these forces will be hired at a province level and they will wear Afghan National Army (ANA) uniforms. They will be between the ages of 20 and 40. With the formation of the new force, the total number of Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) will increase to 390,000 troops.

"The Territorial Army recruits' salaries are considered to be equivalent to the 75 percent of the salaries of other personnel of the national army. They would moreover, enjoy all health essentials and spiritual privileges," Waziri added. According to Waziri, former personnel of the security and defense forces who have successfully completed at least one period of their military services and were discharged or failed to rejoin the national army due to some certain reasons, could be recruited in the territorial army forces and enjoy similar payment.

"The Territorial Army forces, either under the full or partial control of the government in close cooperation with the national army would be deployed to prevent the enemy influence into the cleared areas, and to secure relations between the government and the people," said the spokesman. Afghan officials maintain that by placing the new militia force under the army’s control will help prevent the abuse and misuse of authority.

The announcement came amid fierce clashes between Afghan security forces and Taliban insurgents across the country, with both sides claiming to have inflicted heavy casualties on their opponents. The Taliban controlled or contested about 44 percent of the Afghan territory and insurgents continued to stage deadly attacks against government forces. Under donald Trump’s new Afghan war strategy, American forces have stepped up airstrikes against insurgent targets, hoping the battlefield pressure will push the Taliban to the negotiating table for talks with the Afghan government to end the conflict. The insurgent group vowed to resist the pressure, though, and to intensify battlefield attacks in the coming spring fighting. The Afghan conflict killed and wounded more than 10,000 civilians while pro-government forces reportedly lost about 10,000 personnel in 2017.