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By Air Force Capt. Bob Everdeen
Provincial Reconstruction Team Qalat
QALAT, Afghanistan – As this year shapes up to be the bloodiest in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, coalition military experts on the ground here are working to help reverse that trend through police reform.
Seven teams from the Combined Transition Command Afghanistan in Kabul make up the Focused District Development, or FDD, a program that is designed to transform the Afghan national police into an independent, well-trained, ethnically-balanced, respectable and sustainable Afghan national security force. One of the teams visited the southern province of Zabul last week to assess local ANP units.
"In most places here the police don't have enough training and don't have enough equipment," said Air Force Lt. Col. Scott Meeker, FDD district assessment and reform team leader. "There are corrupt leaders and the ANP are establishing unauthorized checkpoints along the main highway to extort money from civilians. These types of practices must stop."
The FDD aims to make these changes through an eight-week training course.
"Currently, the ANP get anywhere from two to six weeks of training," Colonel Meeker said. "With FDD they'll be taught policing, basic education, ethics training and more to help develop leaders. Right now the ANP has very few leaders and lots of patrolmen; we need to bridge that gap and take off some of the pressure. For example, the districts of Shar-e-Safa and Shahjoy are authorized four officers and they have only one. Those individuals are the police chiefs and they're busy taking care of administrative work that subordinates should be handling."
After the eight-week training course, ANP officers will return to their respective districts where they'll receive guidance and over watch by coalition police mentoring teams who will monitor activities for at least a month. After that, the FDD will move on to other districts. With more than 400 police districts across the country, the entire process is expected to take five to seven years.
"FDD is all about getting the police force trained, equipped and sustainable by developing leaders," Colonel Meeker said. "We also work hand-in-hand with governance, security, infrastructure and rule of law entities, too."
That's good news for units like Provincial Reconstruction Team Qalat, a joint U.S. Air Force and Army unit stationed here.
"We've seen an increase in violence and attacks here since we arrived in late March," said Army Capt. Jack Bierce, PRT Qalat civil affairs team member. "A stronger police force will allow us more freedom of movement to conduct our mission of working with local officials in strengthening governance, reconstruction and development."
"This was a tremendous eye-opening experience to me," Colonel Meeker said about his visit to the province. "And at the end of the day, it's the right thing for Afghanistan."
| Date Taken: | 12.04.2007 |
| Date Posted: | 12.04.2007 13:49 |
| Story ID: | 14415 |
| Location: | QALAT, AF |
| Web Views: | 321 |
| Downloads: | 302 |
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