Private Military Contractors - Data Dump

[Jan Klimkowski]

Karzai's reading from the wrong script...

We shall see how this plays out.

Karzai to scrap foreign security firms in Afghanistan within four months

Afghan president brings forward deadline for handover of many security duties from foreign security firms to national police

Afghanistan's giant private security industry, which guards everything from western embassies to Nato supply convoys, is set to be scrapped within four months under dramatic new plans from Hamid Karzai.

According to Karzai's spokesman, the Afghan president is due to bring forward plans to dissolve all private security companies and hand over responsibility to the country's still ill-trained and often corrupt police force.

In November, Karzai said the firms, which employ tens of thousands of gunmen, would be phased out by late 2011.

The sudden announcement caught the private security industry by surprise, with many western managers in Kabul simply refusing to believe that the international community, which relies heavily on private armed guards to secure embassies and other facilities, would tolerate Afghan police guarding their foreign staff.

"If you go and talk to any of the big donors you will find that none of them will stay in the country if they can't have international security companies protecting them," said one senior executive of a major international security company.

He said his organisation was still absorbing the unexpected news, saying the threat to shut down security companies "seems to be a bit of a cyclical issue coming back every four to six months".

"It seems to be almost every time there is push from the US on anti-corruption, there is push back by the Afghan government saying [corruption] is all the private security companies' fault," he said.

The industry is seen by the Afghan government and its key allies as a source of instability, and indeed many of the companies are little more than private militias operating in their own specific patches of the country.

Currently, there are 52 registered companies with an estimated 30,000 staff. However, there are also huge numbers of unregistered companies, including 22 in the southern province of Kandahar alone.

According to some estimates, there could be as many as 50,000 people working for private security companies in Afghanistan.

A recent study by the US Congress heavily criticised a $2.2bn (£1.4bn) US government contract for trucking services, which said some of the security companies involved in protecting road convoys were paying protection money directly to insurgents.

For years, the average pay for Afghans working for private security companies has outstripped rewards for policeman and soldiers, making it difficult for the government to recruit its own security forces.

Yesterday a military spokesman for Nato said the alliance was "in total support of the president of Afghanistan's intent to do away with security companies and to do away with the need for private security companies".

However, he said these should be done "in a logical and sequential manner and as conditions permit."

The government has made various attempts to clamp down on the operations of the private security industry, including the most recent initiative ordering guards at all companies to wear a standardised uniform, which is due to come into effect in the coming weeks. But for all the trouble caused by such companies, the entire military effort in Afghanistan has essentially outsourced most of its logistics requirements to the private sector, making it totally reliant on security contractors to bring in food, fuel and equipment to Nato bases all over the country.

The Afghan army and police are currently experiencing breakneck growth and undergoing reform programmes to try to make them ready to take over from foreign troops by 2014.

Most embassies would not want to be guarded by an Afghan police force that is plagued with corruption and is also largely illiterate.

A western security official predicted that most embassies would find ways to avoid any ban, possibly citing a longstanding agreement between Nato and the Afghan government that gives near-total immunity to contractors working for the international community. Another option would be to issue embassy guards with diplomatic passports.

Karzai first announced his plans in his inauguration speech last November after he was reappointed president in the wake of national elections.

"The goal of a powerful national government can be realised by the strong presence of national security forces in all parts of the country," he said at the time.

"Within the next two years, we want operations by all private national and international security firms to be ended and their duties delegated to Afghan security entities."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug...e-security