Canada won't support U.S. plan to arm Afghan militias

Washington's plan to arm local tribes to take on the Taliban in untamed districts of Afghanistan is possibly ``counter-productive" and not something Canada supports, says Defence Minister Peter MacKay. The proposal, which the U.S. military will experiment with as up to 30,000 additional American troops surge into the country next year, has been routinely discussed by NATO defence ministers, most recently at meeting in Cornwallis, N.S. "The tribal militia idea that has been around for some time now is controversial; we are not onboard with that," MacKay said in a recent year-end interview with The Canadian Press. "Our preference is to continue with this more formal training process that leads to a more reliable, more professional soldier and Afghan national security force." Hands-on, in-the-field training of Afghan soldiers and police to handle the fragile country's security is the cornerstone of Ottawa's strategy to withdraw Canadian troops from Kandahar by 2011. Although the matter of arming tribal militia was debated at a Nov. 19 meeting of countries leading the fight in south Afghanistan, MacKay said there was "no agreement around the table." U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates did not push NATO allies to fall in line behind the plan, he added. The Americans will proceed with a pilot program in eastern Afghanistan, where NATO troops have faced increasing resistance, early in the New Year. A strategy of surging troops and enlisting local Sunni tribes to fight along with coalition forces has been seen as a winning formula in Iraq. The architect of the plan, U.S. Gen. David Petreaus, is now in charge of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. His Afghan militia proposal involves arming local tribes under the direction of district governors, but with the supervision of the fledgling Afghan Army. It's a plan that many consider fraught with danger due to the complex rivalries of Afghanistan's ethnic and tribal politics. MacKay is one of the skeptics. "Not all of the tactics and not all of the decisions made in Iraq are applicable in Afghanistan," he said. "It could turn out to be counter-productive, and that's why we're using the preferred option of the training process." A shift in American strategy could nevertheless have a profound effect on allies, regardless of whether other countries approve. The U.S., with 32,000 troops already in the ravaged country and more on the way, forms the backbone of both NATO's operations and the continuing war on terror. Military units from the 36 other countries–including some outside the North Atlantic alliance–fight alongside and in some cases are meshed with U.S. forces. A fundamental reshaping of the Afghan mission is under way in the U.S. capital, where president-elect Barrack Obama has declared the battle against the Taliban and al-Qaida to be his country's most important overseas fight. The American general in charge of training Afghan forces was quoted recently as saying the first militia units would be deployed along the treacherous Kabul-to-Kandahar highway, a frequent target for both insurgents and bandits. But Canada's commander on the ground, Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson, said last week he doesn't believe tribal militias will be given any additional power in southern Afghanistan beyond the limited role two of them play in providing local security north of Kandahar. The general in charge of Canada's overseas missions said there are still large ungoverned swaths of southern and eastern Afghanistan, seven years after the U.S. swept the Taliban from power. Lt-.Gen. Michel Gauthier said there aren't enough allied troops–even with the surge–to secure all regions, and the Afghan National Police remains a work in progress. He suggested that while Canada may not like it, arming local militias might be the only way to bring stability in the short term. "I've criticized the notion from time to time (but) in the absence of sufficient ANP or ANA, what's the solution?" Gauthier asked. "I don't know what the solution is." Afghans themselves are having a hard time agreeing whether local militias are a good idea. The country's Tribal Commission drew up its own plan, which immediately won the support of President Hamid Karzai, but members of the country's Parliament rejected it in November, warning the scheme would come back to haunt the government. Some Afghan MPs said warlords left over from the days of the country's civil war would feel empowered once again, and it would ultimately be impossible to control the armed tribes once the Taliban are defeated.