Marines mentor Afghan police

MARJAH, AFGHANISTAN

05.06.2010

Story by Cpl. James Clark 

I Marine Expeditionary Force

MARJAH, Helmand province, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan – The struggle for stability continues in Marjah, Afghanistan.

Members of the Afghan national civil order police have begun to take on a more independent role concerning security within the city where they man checkpoints and patrol the streets.

Police mentor teams have been dispatched to Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, to help guide the ANCOP away from their past role as a paramilitary force, as well as help them earn the trust of a skeptical populace, whose history with police corruption runs deep.

"We're out here to assess the ANCOP here and to train and help improve them," said Cpl. Caleb J. Love, a team leader with the police mentor team attached to Bravo Company, 1/6. "We're here to help get them resources and just make them into real police and get them out of their old role, which was a military mindset."

After a basic three-week course, most of the police officers are sent out to their station, so it falls on the Marines assigned to mentor them to fill in the gaps, explained Love.

"They do a three-week course at Camp Leatherneck, where they get the basic idea of what a police officer is," said Love. "All they really know is about searching personnel and vehicles. We try and advance them, train them on how to question people, gather intelligence, process detainees, and the paperwork side of things, but the biggest thing we're trying to teach them is self reliance."

Capt. John Schneider, the officer in charge of the police mentor team with Bravo Company, 1/6, explained that building up the Afghan police force so that it can stand on its own serves several roles in addition to providing security. It also lends credibility to the national government.

"The police are the first level of the government that a normal person interacts with," said Schneider. "To have people buy into the government and the new system, the effectiveness, honesty and integrity of the police are going to play a major role. We're working with ANCOP to increase their capacity, coordinate their efforts to work well with what the Marines are doing and make sure the [ANCOP] are acting ethically and responsibly."

In order to build the people's trust in the government through the police force, the ANCOP must first make amends for past police corruption.

"The local police that were in Marjah a couple years back were very corrupt, they would tax people, abuse their authority and steal," said Schneider. "Eventually the people threw them out and in doing so created a vacuum, which allowed the Taliban to move in. But now the Taliban are gone, there's that vacuum again, and people have that negative impression of police officers, so they expect the [ANCOP] to do the same thing that the old police did, but for the most part the police here have been doing a good job of turning those opinions around. They've been providing good security, helping people and reaching out to them – making a difference."

With most of the national focus fixed on pushing the Taliban out of the country, smaller, but more numerous issues go unnoticed. The ANCOP help to prevent and solve the smaller crimes which are forgotten about in favor of larger security issues, explained Love.

"This is definitely one of the most important roles out here," said Love. "Afghanistan only sees the military side of things and has no way to deal with the smaller crimes that go around. People are still in the Taliban mentality – that that's the only bad thing out there. There's still the drug problem. We even got reports of locals harassing children, and these problems aren't dealt with because there's no real police force set up. If we start with the small things, it will lead to bigger things."

• Date Taken: 05.06.2010
• Date Posted: 05.06.2010 02:05
• Story ID: 49201
• Location: MARJAH, AF