U.S. stops giving confiscated arms to Afghan warlords

BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- The U.S. military has stopped handing over confiscated weapons to Afghan militia fighters following criticism it was strengthening regional warlords at the expense of the national government.

The change was made quietly after The Associated Press reported Oct. 16 that weapons caches were going to militia fighters traveling with U.S. forces, Col. Roger King said Friday.

Critics worried that arming the private militias would fuel fighting between rival warlords, destabilize Afghanistan and undermine the fragile government of President Hamid Karzai.

King, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said American commanders decided the practice conflicted with U.S. efforts to train a new Afghan national army.

"When the articles started coming out, we realized there was some discrepancy between what may be going on in the field and what the actual policy was supposed to be," he said.

Almost every day, U.S. forces searching along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan find caches of weapons and ammunition. On Thursday alone, special forces based in the town of Urgun found 148 82 mm mortar rounds, 700 rounds of heavy machine gun ammunition and five anti-personnel mines.

Most of the finds are in poor condition and are destroyed. But until the policy was changed last week, fighters traveling with the U.S. forces were given their pick of the usable weapons and ammunition, followed by other militia fighters in the area. The Afghan National Army, which still has less than 2,000 fighters, was last.

King said U.S. commanders on the ground had been trying to make sure the forces aiding them were well supplied.

"For clarity's sake, we've gone back out and said, 'This is it, this is cut and dried: It either goes to the Afghan National Army at the Kabul military training facility ... or it is destroyed.'" King said.

The announcement was welcomed by international analysts.

"I think the United States knows it made a mistake," said Christopher Langton, head of defense analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "This is a move toward giving the national army the authority and the status it needs."

However, he said the international community still needs to clear up how weapons will be shared among veteran anti-Taliban commanders who dominate Karzai's government.

Some commanders are still fighting each other, making vast parts of northern Afghanistan dangerous for international aid workers.

"I think from the beginning there was a crucial strategic error in equating stability with support for warlords," said John Sifton, the main Afghanistan researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch.

King said the change might hurt the readiness of Afghan soldiers aiding the Americans, but it might also force them to turn to the Ministry of Defense for weapons, reinforcing the central government.

Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim himself commands a private militia. He has questioned the need for a national army, but has changed his public stance under international pressure.

Fahim's militia is believed to have huge stockpiles of weapons in the Panjshir valley, but it is unclear whether Fahim would agree to give arms and ammunition to rival militias. King said it would be a test of his commitment to a national military authority.

Getting weapons from the defense ministry "has to be a viable option for Afghan army forces at some point in the future," King said. "That's one of the reasons you have a ministry-level part of the government, to provide resources to soldiers in the field."