Tragedy for UK In Afghanistan Leads To Hard Questions

By Steve Hynd

The news that an Afghan policeman has shot British soldiers who were mentoring his unit, killing five and wounding six more, has sent shockwaves through the UK's press, public and political parties today.

British and Afghan officials said the men were killed at a police checkpoint when the policeman picked up his weapon and began firing.

The British soldiers were living and working at the checkpoint as part of a team mentoring the Afghan National police (ANP).

The gunman apparently fired without warning, then fled. Another six UK servicemen and two ANP officers were injured.

A UK military spokesman said: "It's our understanding that one individual Afghan National policeman, possibly in conjunction with another, went rogue.

"His motives and whereabouts are unknown at this time. Every effort is now being put into hunting down those responsible for this attack."

The Taliban have reportedly claimed responsibility for the attacks, bringing long-standing questions about how thoroughly compromised the Afghan security forces are by militants and their own corruption into sharp focus.

Every single British newspaper is covering the attack and pessimistically analyzing the prospect of the joint US/UK strategy of "we'll stand down as they stand up" ever working. Training the Afghan security forces is the lynchpin of McChrystal's exit strategy and one of the reasons he wants more troops, yet the rush to train those forces has left exactly the kinds of gaping holes that the Taliban can exploit.

Peter Galbraith, the UN official who resigned over UN complicity in Afghan presidential election fraud, told the BBC radio:

"The process of police training and recruiting has been very rushed. Normally the police get an eight-week training course. That is actually very short and there isn't a lot of vetting of police before they are hired.

"And actually, in recent months, they shortened the training programme from eight weeks to five weeks because they wanted to get more police boots on the ground in advance of the elections. So there was a real rush to recruit an additional 10,000, particularly in the south, particularly in Kandahar and Helmand provinces.

"So it is not totally surprising that people were recruited who may have had Taliban sympathies or were infiltrated into the police by the Taliban although I don't know yet whether in this particular episode that is exactly what happened."

The undermining of the legitimacy of the Afghan government because of the "chaos" surrounding the election had also "created opportunities for the Taliban," he said, sending his condolences to the families of those killed in the incident.

While The Herald quoted Captain Doug Beattie, a 27-year veteran British officer involved with training Afghan security forces:

Mr Beattie, who worked with the ANP during tours of Afghanistan in 2006-07 and 2008, said Afghan police officers were often paid off by insurgents.

He alleged that a former chief of police in Helmand was caught talking directly to the Taliban on his personal phone on several occasions.

�It is absolutely right to say that the Afghan police are infiltrated by the Taliban at every level, from the very lowest to the very highest,� he said.

Mr Beattie added: �Fears about the police are really well founded and they have been known about since 2006.

�There are a number of real problems. They�re not really trained properly.

�They�re really a militia, a tribal police whose allegiances are not necessarily to the government or even to the provincial governor. It is normally to their village or tribe or the area they come from.

�Because they�re militia they can be bought and paid off at will. If the government�s paying them they�re reasonably happy. But if they don�t get enough money they�re quite happy to be paid by the insurgency.�

He also raised concerns about drug abuse among Afghan police officers, large numbers of whom are said to be habitual users of heroin or cannabis.

The Afghan Interior Minister has described the shooting as an "isolated incident", however that's simply false as the London Times notes:

There have now been several episodes in which Afghan policemen have suddenly turned their weapons on Western mentors or their fellow policemen.

In September a policeman opened fire on an American soldier in the capital, Kabul, seriously wounding him, because the American was drinking water during the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims traditionally fast during the day. Two Americans died in an unexpected attack in Warden province on October 2. Two weeks later an Afghan policeman hurled a grenade and opened fire on American mentors in eastern Afghanistan, killing one.

While some past attacks appeared to result from cultural misunderstanding and personal disputes, yesterday�s is the third attack in just over a month, suggesting that the incidents may be more than coincidence and the Taleban has begun to plan such episodes.

For now, Gordon Brown is staying the course, saying that the Taliban is afraid of US and UK attempts to mentor Afghan forces and claiming that is the reason for this attack, rather than it being a symptom of failure. It's a pretty thin spin to use as a pretext for the UK's continued involvement.

Still,  former foreign office minister Kim Howells, a Labour MP and parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee chairman is just the latest Labour voice to say that the "great majority" of British troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan. With the press and public now firmly against further involvement, and his Conservative opponents trying to outflank him to the Left, Brown - if he survives long enough - is liable to wobble considerably as we approach the next General Election.