THE US has relinquished control of controversial night-time raids in Afghanistan, giving Kabul an effective veto on operations to capture and kill insurgent leaders which US generals have long said are critical to success in the decade-old war.
Afghan forces will approve and lead all raids, and hold and interrogate all Afghan prisoners, according to an agreement signed yesterday by the Afghan defence minister and the top US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) general in Afghanistan.
“If the Afghans don’t want to go and do something, we are not going to force them to do it. They are going to decide who to go after,” a US military officer involved in the negotiations said of the deal.
The night raids, often in insurgent-dominated territory, have generated huge resentment among Afghans both because of civilian deaths in operations that have gone wrong and through more general anger over intrusions into homes and families.
President Hamid Karzai has for years condemned them as a violation of Afghan sovereignty and demanded they stop.
“This is big progress. It is what our president and our people have been asking for since years [ago],” said Mr Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, of the memorandum of understanding that brought such raids under Afghan control.
Foreign commanders countered that the ability to take out Taliban leaders was critical to making progress against battle-hardened insurgents able to hide among the civilian population and retreat to safe havens across the Pakistani border.
Although the deal may constrain such raids, it does permit their use and will mean responsibility for any civilian deaths or mistreatment will be shared with an Afghan partner.
“After today, in the framework of special operations, only Afghan special forces will be able to search residential places,” defence minister Gen Abdul Rahim Wardak said. All raids will also have to be approved in advance by an Afghan co-ordination centre, staffed by officers from the police, army and intelligence service.
The agreement helps Washington move further towards disentangling its troops from the war in Afghanistan, which is almost certain to be still under way in some form after 2014, when all foreign combat forces are due home.“This is the definition of transition,” said a senior US official involved in the negotiations. “It’s doing what we said we were going to do, transition to Afghan lead for security.”
The deal was also critical to paving the way to a longer-term strategic partnership agreement, which will lay out the terms of the two nations’ relationship from 2015.
The US wants an agreement sealed before a Nato conference in Chicago next month, when allies are expected to agree long-term funding for Afghan security forces.
“Today we are one step closer to the establishment of the US-Afghan strategic partnership,” Gen John Allen, commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, said at the signing ceremony.
For now, a shortage of trained Afghan special forces personnel means US forces are likely to remain substantially involved in carrying out night raids.
– (Guardian service)