The ‘unstoppable’ peace process in Nad ‘Ali

After a few quick hand­shakes and nods of recog­ni­tion, Lieu­tenant Gross meets with one man he knows well, who explains how his broth­er has recent­ly returned from the US and is keen to fund the reopen­ing of the local school. 

It is a small exam­ple of how life is return­ing to the area as con­fi­dence in secu­ri­ty takes hold. Major Mur­ray also tells me that local farm­ers are man­ag­ing to coax four crops a year out of their fer­tile soils for the first time in decades. 

Not far away, in Nad ‘Ali dis­trict cen­tre, the bazaar has increased from the two or three shops of a year ago to over 100 today and the new­ly-met­alled roads are allow­ing farm­ers to take their goods to market. 

Asked how such a trans­for­ma­tion has been achieved Major Mur­ray says that sus­tained inter­ac­tion and liv­ing amongst the locals, under­stand­ing them and what makes them tick, has been crucial. 

He is keen to stress though that his men are sim­ply build­ing on the achieve­ments of UK and Afghan troops on pre­vi­ous HER­RICKs and the hard work invest­ed in the area over sev­er­al years. 

Car­ry­ing the baton into the future will be the sole respon­si­bil­i­ty of the Afghans. Much of that respon­si­bil­i­ty will rest with the Afghan Nation­al Police (ANP) as the Afghan Nation­al Army (ANA) move to more out­ly­ing areas to take on the insur­gency in the hinterland. 

Lead­ing the police from the new­ly-built Dis­trict Police Head­quar­ters in Nad ‘Ali is Dis­trict Chief of Police Lieu­tenant Colonel Shah­di Khan, who said that he had ever-increas­ing con­fi­dence in his force: 

“We have enough men now and more impor­tant­ly we have the trust of the peo­ple. When the peo­ple trust the ANP we can do any­thing,” he said. 

Despite Lieu­tenant Colonel Khan’s opti­mism the qual­i­ty and quan­ti­ty of the Afghan secu­ri­ty forces will deter­mine the speed of tran­si­tion and its even­tu­al suc­cess or failure. 

The issue is being tack­led on sev­er­al fronts, not least in the Lashkar Gah provin­cial police train­ing cen­tre. Here hun­dreds of new recruits — and impor­tant­ly junior offi­cers — are under­go­ing instruction. 

Sergeant Glynn Ross of the Min­istry of Defence Police, who has been train­ing junior ANP offi­cers in Hel­mand, said that while the police in Afghanistan have to know how to fight the insur­gency, he is try­ing to focus heav­i­ly on tra­di­tion­al polic­ing skills: 

“It is part of their mis­sion here to gain the hearts and minds of the peo­ple, and if they do that they will be halfway there,” he said. “They are cer­tain­ly going to be a good police ser­vice at the end of the day. 

“Com­pared with 18 months ago we are now turn­ing out a much, much high­er stan­dard of recruit.” 

Progress at all lev­els — from the police to deliv­er­ing infra­struc­ture projects — has been laud­ed, and the for­mal process for trans­fer­ring secu­ri­ty con­trol in Nad ‘Ali is anoth­er step on the road to full tran­si­tion across the coun­try by 2015 when ISAF com­bat oper­a­tions will end. 

This of course is not the end of the sto­ry. UK and oth­er NATO troops will like­ly con­tin­ue to offer train­ing assis­tance to the Afghans after 2014 and For­eign Sec­re­tary William Hague has made clear that tran­si­tion does not mean the end of inter­na­tion­al support: 

“The UK remains com­mit­ted to a strong, long-term part­ner­ship with Afghanistan based on diplo­ma­cy, trade and devel­op­ment, and sup­port for Afghan Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Forces’ [ANSF] devel­op­ment,” he said. 

Gen­er­al Sherin Shah, the com­man­der of the 6,000 ANA troops that form 3rd Brigade 215 Corps, which cov­er the key Hel­mand dis­tricts of Lashkar Gah, Nahr‑e Saraj, Nad ‘Ali and Gereshk, is bull­ish in his view of the future: 

“In Nad ‘Ali the ANSF will take over respon­si­bil­i­ty for secu­ri­ty. The process of tran­si­tion will take time, and it is not some­thing that will hap­pen overnight, but ISAF troops are not leav­ing us and will sup­port us if we need it,” he said. 

“I have seen big changes in Nad ‘Ali in the past few years. Now there are shops, busi­ness­es and con­struc­tion projects hap­pen­ing. Chil­dren can go to school to learn. The peace process will con­tin­ue and noth­ing will stop us.” 

This arti­cle is tak­en from the Decem­ber 2011/January 2012 edi­tion of Defence Focus — the mag­a­zine for every­one in Defence. 

Press release
Min­istry of Defence, UK 

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