Nato units turn to help from Afghan militias blamed for assassinations and civilian deaths

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/asia_pacific/nato+turns+to+militias+in+afghanistan+battle/3651297

Nato turns to militias in Afghanistan battle
By Channel 4 News
Updated on 17 May 2010

A Channel 4 News investigation finds that a number of US and Nato units discreetly turn to help from Afghan militias blamed for assassinations and civilian deaths. Stephen Grey reports from Kandahar.




Elite American and Nato military units in Afghanistan have discreetly turned for help from the "private armies" of warlords and tribal leaders as a controversial tactic in the war against the Taliban, it can be revealed.

Working alongside both US intelligence and special force agencies, irregular Afghan militia groups are increasingly being blamed for theft, corruption, targeted assassinations. They have also been accused of involvement in raids aimed at killing the Taliban but in which innocent men, women and children have been killed.

Nowhere are fears more pronounced about the role of militias than in the southern city of Kandahar, at the centre of a Nato operations this summer to reverse the tide of the Afghanistan war. Here, many say private armed groups are feared more than the Taliban. Assassinations often publicly blamed on the insurgents are frequently carried out, it is said, by what some already refer to as "death squads".

"If someone kills someone the government itself says don't touch him," said Shahida Hussein, a local human rights activist who is one of the few who dares to speak openly on the subject. "They say don't bother him (the killer). He's our friend. He’s our relative. He has a connection with us."


Hussein was speaking as she met the latest victim of a militia – a father whose home was ransacked, property stolen and who was thrown in jail by a well-connected militia that was hired by his son-in-law when he tried to assist his daughter in a divorce. She explained such militias only had power because they had protection and earned cash from both the Afghan government and Nato. "There is no real government here. Kandahar is run by people in the drugs trade, armed with weapons and backed by foreign countries.

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The US sinks to the level of the Taliban.