A Year in Review

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When I arrived in Afghanistan on November 10, 2007, my first impression was dirty, a dusty, noisy airfield. Being the only civilian police officer on Kandahar Air Field (KAF) at the time, I was a bit of a novelty and was constantly asked what I was doing here.  Very few people it seems knew that we had been doing police mentoring since 2005. At the time, there was very little focus on the police, how to improve them, how to train them and how to mentor them to be efficient and effective and professional in this part of the country.

Then along came the Focused District Development.  This initiative was being led by the United States, and our role was to pick districts where we felt we could add value to this program. There were competing interests in picking the districts for training as capacity at the schools and mentors were in short number.  Our biggest success was lobbying for Kandahar City to be a priority. We knew we could make an impact there in the civilian policing mode as the city was permissive enough to get around in, the population was more interested in community based policing and there were systems in place to support those programs. So along with Kandahar city, we also provided support and mentors for the key districts of Zhari, Panjwayi, Arghendab, Dand/Daman and Spin Boldak.

The key to this success was getting more Canadian police officers who had good skill sets to provide mentoring and training to the Afghan National Police (ANP). Over the past year, we have tripled the number of officers at the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). Starting with eight when I first arrived, we now have 24 officers working in the Province. We were successful in getting our own training center built and have provided valuable police skill training to hundreds of ANP officers.  Training in the areas of Improvised Explosive Device (IED) cordons, combat first aid, interview techniques, counter terrorism training, officer safety, firearms training, check point management, police station management, crime scene management and bodyguard courses have helped the ANP with their daily job.

While we have helped train over 1200 ANP in our area, there is much to be done.  The ANP are still the main targets of the insurgents losing over 1100 officers per year country wide, most of these in the south. They need more support and better equipment management. There are high illiteracy rates and drug addiction issues to overcome. But the police are making ground slowly, gaining confidence in themselves and earning the respect of the populations, which are key to their success.  They still need a lot of support, training and assistance before they will be able to stand on their own, but over the past year we have seen them start this path. There is never a lack of recruits to sign up, and as we continue to expand our capacity to train them we will need to expand the ability to mentor them at all levels. It is a long-term project that will take time and patience, on our part as well as the Afghans.

It has been great to see the changes that have taken place and to have been part of the small snowball that is gaining speed and size as it rolls down the hill. It has been the most engaging, unique and challenging part of my career to date. I have lost friends here and made many more. Afghanistan will always remain with me for many years to come.

RCMP Supt. Joe McAllister has been working with the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar since November 10, 2007.