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U.S. police to bolster Canadian cop ranks in Afghanistan
Matthew Fisher, Canwest News Service, 26 Aug 09
Article link
Canadian police mentors in Kandahar City are going to get help soon from the U.S. army.
"These are not just any Americans. It is a company of military police," assistant commissioner Graham Muir of the RCMP said in an interview on Wednesday.
"What is about to unfold," the senior Canadian police officer in Afghanistan said, is that Canadian mentors based in the country's second largest city are going to be "a little more robust in the field" because the U.S. military police that they will soon work with "have fighting skills."
The more than 100 newcomers from the U.S. are to work directly for Brig-Gen. Jon Vance, the Canadian who runs Task Force Kandahar. A battalion of U.S. army infantry already reports to Vance, whose command will soon number more than 4,000 troops, including 2,800 Canadians.
The move to add the U.S. military policemen was planned weeks before a truck bomb killed 43 Afghans and injured scores of others Tuesday night in Kandahar City. But that horrific attack underscored why bringing more security to the most notorious Taliban bastion in the country is a key priority of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new NATO commander here.
As part of a plan to support Canada's long over-stretched battle group, about 3,000 soldiers from a U.S. army Stryker brigade are being positioned in Kandahar City's northern suburbs as well as along the approaches to the north and east of the city and the borders with Pakistan and Helmand province.
The American MPs are to live alongside Canadian police mentors at a Canadian base in Kandahar City. Their presence should allow the police mentors to have greater mobility which in turn should permit them to spend more time with Afghan police from nine or 10 sub-stations in the city, Muir said.
"It is a force multiplier for us to be in the presence of the ANP with considerably more frequency," he said, adding "as much as humanly possible, coaching and training needs to be done in the field."
The goal was for Afghan police to be able to move at will, own the night and know their neighbourhoods better, said Muir, a veteran of previous tours on behalf of the Mounties in the Balkans and Haiti.
"If the police can move freely, the corollary is that there is less space for the bad guys," Muir said. "To own the night is self-explanatory. Knowing your public means knowing who belongs (in an area) and who doesn't."
But such an approach is an uneasy fit with Afghanistan's existing police culture.
"The police here are mostly static at checkpoints, guarding buildings or waiting in their stations to be called," he said, referring to this as "a garrison mentality."
"There is an operational imperative that attaches to the process. It must be pragmatic and clear. That is to enable the Afghan police who as part of the Afghan National Security Forces have a responsibility for counter-insurgency.
"This is a country at war. These are not normal policing circumstances,"
The risk to foreign police assisting Afghan police was made plain nearly two weeks ago when a Taliban car bomber blew himself up near NATO headquarters in Kabul. Sgt. Brian Kelly of the RCMP was badly injured in the attack and is now recovering at a hospital in Ottawa. That incident was a stark warning about the dangers that the 42 Canadian police officers currently posted here face every day.
There was no "canned message that we tell the guys," about the threats that they may face before they come here, Muir said, but "we demonstrate in our activities and habits that we mitigate risks."
For example, whether they are on mounted patrols or on foot with Afghan colleagues, Canadian police in Kandahar only go out in the field with support from Canadian infantry who create "a sufficiently permissive environment," Muir said. The same "force protection" principles would be followed when Canadian police go out with the U.S. military police.
Unlike Canada's mentors who spend much of their time walking the beat with Afghan police, hundreds of police mentors from Europe here mainly assist at the strategic level and seldom venture "outside the wire."
"We are kind of unique because we have federal police, provincial police from small towns and police from big cities," Muir said.
More than half of the 22 police who deployed to Afghanistan alongside Muir in June have served in previous overseas missions. The officers had an average of 27 years of service and that service was weighted heavily toward field experience and operational command and supervisory experience.
Three of the eight new Canadian officers coming in November are women.
"The centre of gravity is in the south and that would suggest that two of the three (women) are probably heading south," Muir said. "Kandahar is where the bulk of the effort is, but there is a reason to be in Kabul, too."
The other female officer from Canada will likely be based in the capital so that she can contribute to broader policy development such as how to advance gender issues within the police beyond security issues.
As all the Canadian mentors discover when they get here, Afghans often regard their police as being corrupt and unhelpful.
"I hear a lot of disparaging remarks," Muir acknowledged, "but it is better to light a candle than disparage the darkness."
Moving to the computer behind his desk at the Canadian Embassy, Muir called up a New York Times photograph of Afghan police dragging survivors away from the recent bombing at the NATO headquarters as the suicide car burned just behind them.
"To move away from that blast they had to move towards it first," he said proudly. "Police all over the world move towards trouble, not away from it."
U.S. police to bolster Canadian cop ranks in Afghanistan
Matthew Fisher, Canwest News Service, 26 Aug 09
Article link
Canadian police mentors in Kandahar City are going to get help soon from the U.S. army.
"These are not just any Americans. It is a company of military police," assistant commissioner Graham Muir of the RCMP said in an interview on Wednesday.
"What is about to unfold," the senior Canadian police officer in Afghanistan said, is that Canadian mentors based in the country's second largest city are going to be "a little more robust in the field" because the U.S. military police that they will soon work with "have fighting skills."
The more than 100 newcomers from the U.S. are to work directly for Brig-Gen. Jon Vance, the Canadian who runs Task Force Kandahar. A battalion of U.S. army infantry already reports to Vance, whose command will soon number more than 4,000 troops, including 2,800 Canadians.
The move to add the U.S. military policemen was planned weeks before a truck bomb killed 43 Afghans and injured scores of others Tuesday night in Kandahar City. But that horrific attack underscored why bringing more security to the most notorious Taliban bastion in the country is a key priority of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new NATO commander here.
As part of a plan to support Canada's long over-stretched battle group, about 3,000 soldiers from a U.S. army Stryker brigade are being positioned in Kandahar City's northern suburbs as well as along the approaches to the north and east of the city and the borders with Pakistan and Helmand province.
The American MPs are to live alongside Canadian police mentors at a Canadian base in Kandahar City. Their presence should allow the police mentors to have greater mobility which in turn should permit them to spend more time with Afghan police from nine or 10 sub-stations in the city, Muir said.
"It is a force multiplier for us to be in the presence of the ANP with considerably more frequency," he said, adding "as much as humanly possible, coaching and training needs to be done in the field."
The goal was for Afghan police to be able to move at will, own the night and know their neighbourhoods better, said Muir, a veteran of previous tours on behalf of the Mounties in the Balkans and Haiti.
"If the police can move freely, the corollary is that there is less space for the bad guys," Muir said. "To own the night is self-explanatory. Knowing your public means knowing who belongs (in an area) and who doesn't."
But such an approach is an uneasy fit with Afghanistan's existing police culture.
"The police here are mostly static at checkpoints, guarding buildings or waiting in their stations to be called," he said, referring to this as "a garrison mentality."
"There is an operational imperative that attaches to the process. It must be pragmatic and clear. That is to enable the Afghan police who as part of the Afghan National Security Forces have a responsibility for counter-insurgency.
"This is a country at war. These are not normal policing circumstances,"
The risk to foreign police assisting Afghan police was made plain nearly two weeks ago when a Taliban car bomber blew himself up near NATO headquarters in Kabul. Sgt. Brian Kelly of the RCMP was badly injured in the attack and is now recovering at a hospital in Ottawa. That incident was a stark warning about the dangers that the 42 Canadian police officers currently posted here face every day.
There was no "canned message that we tell the guys," about the threats that they may face before they come here, Muir said, but "we demonstrate in our activities and habits that we mitigate risks."
For example, whether they are on mounted patrols or on foot with Afghan colleagues, Canadian police in Kandahar only go out in the field with support from Canadian infantry who create "a sufficiently permissive environment," Muir said. The same "force protection" principles would be followed when Canadian police go out with the U.S. military police.
Unlike Canada's mentors who spend much of their time walking the beat with Afghan police, hundreds of police mentors from Europe here mainly assist at the strategic level and seldom venture "outside the wire."
"We are kind of unique because we have federal police, provincial police from small towns and police from big cities," Muir said.
More than half of the 22 police who deployed to Afghanistan alongside Muir in June have served in previous overseas missions. The officers had an average of 27 years of service and that service was weighted heavily toward field experience and operational command and supervisory experience.
Three of the eight new Canadian officers coming in November are women.
"The centre of gravity is in the south and that would suggest that two of the three (women) are probably heading south," Muir said. "Kandahar is where the bulk of the effort is, but there is a reason to be in Kabul, too."
The other female officer from Canada will likely be based in the capital so that she can contribute to broader policy development such as how to advance gender issues within the police beyond security issues.
As all the Canadian mentors discover when they get here, Afghans often regard their police as being corrupt and unhelpful.
"I hear a lot of disparaging remarks," Muir acknowledged, "but it is better to light a candle than disparage the darkness."
Moving to the computer behind his desk at the Canadian Embassy, Muir called up a New York Times photograph of Afghan police dragging survivors away from the recent bombing at the NATO headquarters as the suicide car burned just behind them.
"To move away from that blast they had to move towards it first," he said proudly. "Police all over the world move towards trouble, not away from it."
