Afghan Police likely to have continued support from U.S.

Elizabeth Matthews, Intelligence Communications

04 July 2007

Afghan Police likely to have continued support from U.S.

Executive Summary:

Continued aid and training to Afghan police from the United States will likely offer support to police officers and their structure after the resurfacing of Ayman al Zawhiri. With continued support from the U.S., Afghan police officers can use counterintelligence to disrupt the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other militant or terrorist groups from penetrating the Afghanistan government.

Discussion:

The United States provided the newly created Afghanistan police force with $4.1 billion dollars from 2002 to 2005 to support and train the Afghanistan police and the army. Afghanistan’s homeland security and police force has become an international project. With the United States overseeing and financially supporting police forces at the U.S. embassy and German forces training Afghan police; police forces in Afghanistan have been trained to follow rule of law, handle criminals, and handle terrorist threats.

The recent video from Ayman al Zawhiri has threatened to continue terrorist attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan. With promised terrorist attacks coming in Afghanistan, Afghan police are undergoing more training and recruiting more individuals to fight the Taliban. Currently, Afghan police are still receiving funds and training from the U.S. The current training is enabling police to combat the Taliban at the ground level. Afghanistan still continues to face significant internal threats such as drugs (opium and heroine), threats to civilian reconstruction, and militants who are challenging Afghanistan’s new government.

The U.S. government wants to see Afghanistan succeed in becoming a democratic state; therefore the United States has requested $50 billion in the 2007 budget to aid Afghanistan and the military’s efforts in Afghanistan. To help Afghanistan address internal threats, the United States reestablished a five-pillared security reform agenda and designated a donor country to take the lead in reforming each pillar. The United States volunteered to lead the army reform effort, Italy volunteered in the Justice effort, the United Kingdom volunteered in aiding in combating drugs, Germany volunteered to lead the police reform effort and Japan volunteered in aiding in disarmament, demilitarization, and reintegration.

Comments: The United States is continuing to aid and train Afghan police officers as attacks began to pose more of a threat on police officers from the Taliban. With terrorists activities rising in the world with and the recent resurfacing of Ayman al Zawhiri in a video tape released after the Fourth of July; terrorist are looking toward different alternatives to build explosives to avoid capture and continue attacking innocent Afghan police officials and coalition forces.

Source: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05575.pdf

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19620751

Source Reliability: 7

Analytic Confidence: 6