U.S. puts hopes in bedraggled Afghan police

Afghan national police checkpoint No. 4, substation 3, is a blighted shell of a building ringed by garbage and shaded by scruffy trees whose leaves are coated with fine gray dust. Here, nine police officers have the task of protecting the Shinghazi Baba neighborhood of southern Kandahar.

Sometimes they can’t even protect themselves. Two months ago, an officer was fatally shot by an insurgent who escaped on a motorcycle.

“The force-protection posture is not really all that great,” Sgt. 1st Class Arnaldo Colon, a U.S. Army military policeman, said as he arrived Wednesday morning for an inspection. He gestured toward dilapidated concrete barriers, a few sad strands of concertina wire and a yelping guard dog tied to a tree.

If the U.S. is to succeed in seizing control of Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, from the Taliban this summer, improving the performance of the Afghan police will be at the heart of that effort. The often bedraggled force patrols roads and operates neighborhood checkpoints, putting officers in daily contact with a civilian populace the U.S. is trying to win over.

Colon’s unit, the 293rd Military Police Company, trains and mentors Afghan police in Kandahar. The U.S. military is attempting to put an Afghan face on policing, pushing Afghans to take the lead on patrols, searches and neighborhood sweeps. The police and army will be responsible for security when U.S. forces begin to withdraw, perhaps as early as next summer.

When his company arrived in July as the only U.S. unit stationed in downtown Kandahar, Colon said, the police “didn’t have a clue.” They were incapable of patrolling on their own.

“Now, they’re better prepared and know the minimum standards for patrol and security,” Colon said as he led a foot patrol of seven U.S. MPs and six Afghan officers through busy streets filled with vendors hawking vegetables and shopkeepers selling sodas and snacks.

One of the MPs’ biggest challenges, in addition to stemming rampant corruption and desertion, is teaching police to handle their own logistics. The Afghan officers are still unable to obtain and deliver their own food, water, ammunition, vehicles, fuel and construction materials, or to maintain and repair the equipment. They rely on North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces for all that.

The MP patrol, for instance, had brought containers of fuel for vehicles at the police substation and for two 2-ton generators installed by NATO. Fuel is supposed to be supplied by central police headquarters in downtown Kandahar, Colon said, “but it practically takes an act of Congress to get it here.”

Meanwhile, checkpoint No. 4 had the unkempt look of a homeless camp. It was littered with trash and scraps of food. Three officers sat resting in the shade.

One of Colon’s men, Sgt. Aaron Thomas, took note of the checkpoint’s most glaring needs, starting with security. The cement barriers needed to be refilled with sand, he said. A new well had to be put in, and a small bridge had to be expanded so the police could get their vehicles in and out more efficiently. Electricity was another problem; the site gets only four hours of power every two days.

The Afghan police are crucial for more than just security. They help the U.S. military gather intelligence on insurgents. They also help guide military and civilian aid teams through neighborhoods as they try to set up development projects, a key to turning the population away from the Taliban.

Atah Mohammed, deputy commander of the checkpoint, said there was no police presence in the neighborhood before the checkpoint was set up last summer with MP help. The Afghan officers have managed to build rapport with the residents, who he said desperately want a school, a hospital and improved sanitation.

Yet there are no development projects in the neighborhood, Mohammed said, and virtually no government services. His nine-man checkpoint is literally the face of the government; on his baggy gray police uniform, Mohammed wore a button featuring the smiling visage of President Hamid Karzai.

“We talk to the people every day,” Mohammed said. “They need our help, and we tell them we’re here to serve them. They want us here.”

As the U.S. patrol left the checkpoint, Thomas shook Mohammed’s hand and said, “I’m going to try to get everything fixed for you.”

Once again, the MPs were forced into the role of benefactor despite their desire to wean the police from U.S. help.

Canadian Army Sgt. Sarah Surtees, whose civil affairs patrol bumped into Colon’s patrol at the checkpoint Wednesday, said the Afghan police have been instrumental in her mission. With their help, she said, she assesses community needs and encourages residents to seek help from the government-appointed district manager.

No projects are underway in the Shinghazi Baba neighborhood, Surtees said. But 300 residents of nearby neighborhoods have been hired to clean out clogged irrigation canals and culverts. Water carried by the system is needed by the small farm plots that dominate the area.

After leaving the checkpoint, the MP patrol stopped at another police substation. More fuel was hauled in for police vehicles and generators. When asked by Thomas what he needed, the station commander replied: More MP-led classes on vehicle searches.

They could also use more training in community policing, Colon said, and clearing buildings. “They still need a lot more mentorship before they can stand on their own,” he said.

The patrol was interrupted by a radio call about a car bomb at the military base they had left Wednesday morning. A Toyota Corolla packed with explosives had detonated outside the main gate of Camp Nathan Smith in downtown Kandahar.

The patrol returned to the base by midafternoon. The blackened hulks of 17 cars, 35 motorcycles and a couple dozen bicycles incinerated by the explosion remained. Wisps of smoke rose from the wreckage. Miraculously, no one was killed and only one person, an Afghan woman, was injured.

Most of the cars belonged to Afghan civilian workers at the base, who are required for security reasons to park their cars outside. So while the MPs were out trying to help the Afghan police help Afghan civilians, the Taliban had managed to strike at other Afghan civilians despite the Afghan security forces at the gate.

Ali, 24, a Kandahar resident who works in communications at the base, stood at the gate. His beloved 2003 Toyota sedan, which he had bought just the day before for $7,000 — an object of affection that he called his “sexy car” — was a charred wreck.

Ali, who asked that his surname be withheld because the Taliban has targeted Afghans who work for the military, joined a long list of people in need of assistance. A base public affairs officer said he was welcome to apply at the regular “restitution day,” when the U.S. military considers claims for damages.

But Ali had more immediate concerns.

“I don’t know how I’m going to get home,” he said.

david.zucchino@latimes.com