SHA JOY, Afghanistan Sitting in the darkness, automatic rifles by their sides, five local tribe members have taken on the role of their forefathers to protect the shops of the local bazaar from bandits or foreigners. They sipped tea while keeping an eye out for insurgent fighters who were reportedly trying to use the shrouding darkness of a moonless night to infiltrate the town.
“We have other men posted along the entrance and throughout the bazaar,” the group’s leader said to U.S. Army Lt. Ben Massagee, who was coordinating movements with the Afghans.
“We’re heading to the end of the bazaar. Can you let your men know we’ll be running into them?” Massagee asked.
The whispered exchanges, occurring between the howls of wild dogs, marked an initial effort of U.S. troops to work with a fledgling militia group here, an initiative local commanders hope will grow into the kind of counterinsurgency by locals that aided in the displacement of al Qaeda in Iraq.
U.S. Army Capt. Max Pappas is recruiting the Arbakai, as the militia are known among the Pashtun, in the Zabul district. The goal is to create a group of locals who see it as being in its interest to work with the U.S. and Afghan government forces while maintaining the trust of the local population. The Afghan National Security Forces, both the police and army in this province, are made up mainly of northerners who have never been trusted by the Pashtun population.
“If we do this right, we will see success,” Pappas said. “The villagers know their community, and they are the only ones who really know who the bad guys are and can aide in providing the information necessary to get them.”
It was not easy for Pappas to get the Arbakai off the ground. The Hamid Karzai government, as well as some officials in the U.S. State Department, does not support the idea of local militias, fearful that they will evolve into warlord-led gangs.
That same fear existed in Iraq earlier this decade. But desperate to change the momentum of the war there, the United States bet heavily on Sunni militias. U.S. military forces under Gen. David Petraeus — now commander in Afghanistan — paid nationalist militias like the Sons of Iraq to ally with the U.S. surge. That strategy was credited as part of the turnaround in the Iraq war.
This Arbakai will be under the control of the Interior Ministry of Afghanistan. The fighters will not be roaming through the villages but will partner with Afghan National Security forces at area checkpoints.
“Next year the Interior Ministry will take over the group completely. Its success will depend on the Afghan government, which will be charged with paying the men who are risking their lives to protect their community and aide us,” Pappas said.
That worries some U.S. officials who doubt Karzai’s commitment to the militias.
“As soon as the Interior Ministry is charged with making payments to the militias and fails to do so, the groups will start to dissolve,” said a U.S. official directly familiar with efforts to establish militias in Afghanistan. “These groups are essential to gathering intelligence on the insurgency, and neither Karzai nor [Ambassador Karl] Eikenberry have supported this in the past. If they are stopped, it will be a detriment to success in Afghanistan.”
Despite the complexities in creating such groups, Pappas eventually received approval from the Afghan Interior Ministry to launch the effort in Zabul in mid-September.
At an opening ceremony, 20 or so Arbakai showed up with their Kalashnikov rifles strapped to their shoulders.
“We volunteered for the job a month ago, and we’re worried that they will not pay us on time,” said Mohammed Sabir, an Arbakai member. “We are not afraid of the Taliban, and we know they will try to kill us. If the government and military want answers, they have to treat us with the same respect we will give them.”
Thus far, the group has had minimal training, and several members seemed to be boys in their mid-teens, though they claimed to be older.
Mohammed Ullah, the new commander of the Arbakai in Sha Joy, said members of his family were beaten because of his role in the project. But he said his commitment remained strong.
“These men need the work, and they want to protect their community from the insurgents,” he said. “They are all in danger now, and some will lose their lives to the Taliban. That is one thing we are certain of.”
Sara A. Carter is The Washington Examiner’s national security correspondent. She can be reached at [email protected].
