Anti-Taliban militias arise in Afghanistan

ACHIN, Afghanistan — U.S. and Afghan officials have begun helping a number of anti-Taliban militias that have independently taken up arms against insurgents in several parts of Afghanistan, prompting hopes of a large-scale tribal rebellion against the Taliban.

The emergence of the militias, which took some leaders in Kabul by surprise, has so encouraged U.S. and Afghan officials that they are planning to spur the growth of similar armed groups across the Taliban heartland in the southern and eastern parts of the country.

U.S. and Afghan officials say they are hoping the plan, called the Community Defense Initiative, will bring together thousands of gunmen to protect their neighborhoods from Taliban insurgents. Already there are hundreds of Afghans who are acting on their own against the Taliban, officials say.

Risky endeavor

The endeavor represents one of the most ambitious — and one of the riskiest — plans for regaining the initiative against the Taliban, who are fighting more vigorously than at any time since 2001.

By harnessing the militias, U.S. and Afghan officials hope to rapidly increase the number of Afghans fighting the Taliban.

The militias could help fill the gap while the Afghan army and police forces train and grow — a project that could take years to bear fruit.

"The idea is to get people to take responsibility for their own security," said a senior U.S. military official in Kabul, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "In many places they are already doing that."

The growth of the anti-Taliban militias runs the risk that they could turn on one another, or against the Afghan and the U.S. governments, as has happened in the past.

The Americans say they will tie the groups to the Afghan government and tightly control their activities so they do not create more warlords, who have defied the government's authority for years.

Phase one of plan

The first phase of the Afghan plan, now being carried out by U.S. Special Forces soldiers, is to set up or expand the militias in areas with a population of about a million people.

"We are trying to reach out to these groups that have organized themselves," Col. Christopher Kolenda said in Kabul. Afghan and U.S. officials say they plan to use the militias as tripwires for Taliban incursions, enabling them to call the army or the police if things get out of hand.

The official assistance to the militias so far has been modest, consisting mainly of ammunition and food, officials said.

But U.S. and Afghan officials say they are also planning to train the fighters and provide communication equipment.

In the Pashtun-dominated areas of the south and east, the anti-Taliban militias are being led by elders from local tribes. The Pashtun militias represent a reassertion of the country's age-old tribal system, which binds villages and regions under the leadership of groups of elders.

Taking up arms

Militias have begun taking up arms against the Taliban in several places where insurgents have gained a foothold, including the provinces of Nangarhar and Paktia.

So far, there appears to be some divergence in the U.S. and Afghan efforts.

While U.S. Special Forces units have focused on helping smaller militias, Afghan officials have been channeling assistance to larger armed groups, including those around the northern city of Kunduz.

One of the most striking examples of a local militia rising up on its own is in Achin, a predominantly Pashtun district in Nangarhar province that straddles the border with Pakistan.

In July, a long-running dispute between local Taliban fighters and elders from the Shinwari tribe flared up. When a local Taliban warlord named Khona brought a more senior commander from Pakistan to help in the confrontation, the elders in the Shinwari tribe rallied villagers from up and down the valley where they live, killed the commander and chased Khona away.

The elders had insisted that the Taliban stay away from a group of Afghans building a dike in the valley. When Khona's men kidnapped two Afghan engineers, the Shinwari elders decided they had had enough.

"The whole tribe was with me," one of the elders said in an interview. "The Taliban came to kill me, and instead we killed them."