Sunday, September 25, 2016

Bad ALP and Good ALP - It's All in the Vetting

Photo: PO Matthew Leistikow
ALP rifle training, Jan 2013
The Afghan Local Police (also referred to as the ALP) have a mixed record in Afghanistan. On one hand the ALP provide a local security force to communities that lack the benefit of a robust presence of the Afghan National Army or Afghan National Police. The ALP was designed to provide security in remote districts and communities to degrade the influence and control of insurgents. In many cases this was the case. However, there are many instances where the ALP also became the tool of local power brokers and warlords and adopted predatory practices - eroding support for the Afghan government at the local and national level. There was a robust methodology for the establishment of the Afghan Local Police, and when followed, it resulted in a properly selected, vetted, trained, equipped, and led local police force. However, when the vetting process was not adhered too, the results were far from satisfactory. Read an example of where the ALP first went bad and then good in Shah Joy district, Zabul province in an article entitled "How to replace a bad ALP commander: in Shajoy, success and now calamity", by Fazal Muzhary, Afghanistan Analysts Network, September 21, 2016.

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