New Delhi: With the ‘fig-leaf’ of a pact with the Taliban, the Americans are keen for an ‘honourable exit’ and leave Afghanistan in some months. But a very dangerous creation of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a secret and shadowy force of more than 18,000 combat specialists, raised by the US intelligence agency will be among those who will decide whether Afghanistan sees peace or not.
The role these well-trained, well-equipped and battle-hardened expert paramilitary fighters play- whether they fight for or against the Taliban is still uncertain. In this changing political set-up, their future remains unknown. But one thing is sure that the CIA will continue to have its footprint in Afghanistan, long after the last of the US soldier leaves.
As per 2019 report, ‘The CIA’s Army’ by the Brown University says: “The CIA paramilitaries constitute a formidable set of actors in their own right. Given their highly paid and somewhat privileged status, they are unlikely to welcome a drastic reduction in pay that would accompany integration into the regular armed forces or demobilization.”
“If cut loose by the CIA, they may be reborn as 'private armies' or ‘security guards’ in the service of powerful individuals, or operate autonomously to prey on civilians and commercial sources.”
Not surprisingly, operating beyond the bounds of the law, there has been a string of accusations of illegal killings, rights abuse, and brutal violence by these fighters.
While Ghani-led President controls about 1,00,000 soldiers, the numbers of these trained-to-kill specialists compare favourably with the other main non-state actors in the war-ravaged country.
Taliban, which is of course a multi-layered entity, comprises at least 60,000 combatants.
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While Al-Qaeda is believed to have 600 fighters mainly in Khost, Kunar, Nuristan, Paktiya and Zabul. The Islamic State (Khorasan) has about 2,500 fighters in Afghanistan, with about half of them concentrated in Kunar.
The origin of these militias raised by the CIA goes back to the 1980s when the US cobbled together 'mujahedins' in the fight against the Soviets. After the Soviets left, 'mujahedins' fought amongst themselves with the more radical among them organising themselves under the Taliban in the 1990s. It became the CIA's job to hoist Afghan 'mujahedin' factions against the Taliban.
It was these militias that formed the US support backbone when the Americans landed in Afghanistan hunting for al-Qaida in 2001 after 9/11, also explaining for the rapid initial success that the US had in fighting the Al Qaida.
In the next few years, the CIA resisted pressures including from the United Nations and the Afghan government to demobilize these militias. On the contrary, as the Taliban reorganized the CIA supported engaging the militias in a key role in the overall counter-insurgency strategy. As a result, many more militias were formed. One example being the secretive and infamous CIA-trained CTPT (Counterterrorist Pursuit Teams) comprising at least 3,000 Afghan fighters who were paid by the CIA.
After 2015, the CIA helped set up paramilitary units attached to the National Directorate of Security (NDS) with the mandate to pursue and eliminate Islamic State (ISIS) militants who were gathering strength in northeastern Afghanistan.
The NDS has four units organized in an area of operation. NDS-01 operates in central Afghanistan, NDS-02 in the east, NDS-03 (also called the Kandahar Strike Force) in the south while NDS-04 is mandated to operate in the north. Salaries are paid by the CIA and operations are closely-guarded secrets. These four units together would comprise upwards of 5,000 ‘specialists’.
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The UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has said about the NDS Special Forces operations that they “appear to be coordinated with international military actors, outside the normal Governmental chain of command.”
One of the most prominent of these shadowy outfits is the about 10,000 strong Khost Protection Force (KPF) which operates from the CIA base Camp Chapman, located at the outskirts of Khost city.
