21-Feb-2012 - Afghanistan to Spy on Own Troops

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By DION NISSENBAUM KABUL—Afghanistan is rolling out an ambitious plan to spy on its own soldiers, the most serious attempt so far to halt a string of attacks by Afghan troops on their Western comrades-in-arms, according to Afghan and American military leaders. As part of the effort, agents of the National Directorate of Security, the country's spy agency, will be deployed to army units across the country to monitor Afghan soldiers at every step, from recruitment and training to deployment and home leave, these people said. The intent is to identify and weed out any potential troublemakers before problems turn deadly, Afghan Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak said in an interview. "Every soldier has to become an informer," he said. So-called green-on-blue attacks by Afghan servicemen on coalition personnel claimed at least 77 lives in the past five years, with three-quarters occurring since early 2010. Last year, an analyst for the U.S. military warned that the attacks were turning into a "growing systemic threat" to the mission, in a study that has since become classified. The severity of this threat was amplified Monday, when an Afghan policeman killed at least one coalition soldier from Albania in the southern Kandahar province, the Associated Press reported. U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, said the Afghan government was taking "unprecedented steps" to address the problem following the killing of four French soldiers by an Afghan service member on Jan. 20. That incident, in Kapisa province, prompted Paris Pro Beats By Dr Dre Special Edition Detox Professional Black Headphone to accelerate the withdrawal of its troops. Afghan and American officials say they realize that sowing distrust between ISAF soldiers and their Afghan counterparts has become a Taliban strategy. "They recognize that the real center of gravity on our side, the thing that holds us together, gives us our strength, is the relationship between Afghans and ISAF," said U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Daniel Bolger, commander of the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan. "They are going to continue to attack that." As part of the new effort, NDS agents will keep watch on new recruits, conduct more thorough background checks than the Afghan army can currently undertake, monitor the young soldiers as they go through training, and embed in military forces with soldiers at their bases, officials said. The plan will include both uniformed Afghan intelligence officers mingling with the units and covert operatives among the soldiers who will report back to the NDS, officials said. NDS will also attempt to keep an eye on Afghan soldiers when they go on leave. Military commanders are especially concerned about soldiers who return home to Taliban-infiltrated areas of Afghanistan and visit parts of neighboring Pakistan where the insurgent leaders plot their strategies. "Home leave represents opportunities for people to rethink their relationship to the Afghans and their partners. Sometimes people come back changed from leave," said Gen. Bolger. As another layer of protection, ISAF has also started placing armed soldiers in meetings with Afghan officials and service members, to act as a "guardian Monster Beats Studio by Dr Dre Mike Jackson Limited Edition Headphone angel" able to react in case of a sudden green-on-blue attack. "It's a dangerous society and we have an enemy that's announced this as a tactic, so we'd actually be irresponsible if we don't take these kinds of steps," said Gen. Bolger. Even though the Taliban have claimed responsibility for most of the recent green-on-blue attacks, American commanders say insurgent infiltrators represent only a small proportion of the fratricide killings. "Some of them are, in fact, infiltrators," said Gen. Allen. "But the majority have been people who have self-radicalized themselves for a whole variety of reasons." Only one of the 43 attacks by Afghan police or soldiers on coalition forces since May 2007 involved more than one attacker, said Gen. Bolger. In many cases, investigators concluded that the attackers were driven by disputes with their coalition partners or by personal problems at home. That appeared to be the case with Afghan Air Force Col. Ahmed Gul, who killed nine Americans in April 2011 at Kabul International Airport. Col. Gul lived in Pakistan for 18 months and told at least one person in 2008 that he planned to return to Afghanistan "because he wanted to kill Americans," according to a U.S. Air Force investigation that was released last month. It found no evidence of direct links between the colonel and the Taliban. U.S. and Afghan military officials have been wrestling with this problem for years, but the Jan. 20 shooting of four French soldiers was a catalyst: The 21-year-old gunman, one of the few attackers to be captured alive, told investigators that he bribed a recruiter to join the army, ran away to Pakistan, and then returned to bribe the same recruiter so he could rejoin the army. —Matt Solo Beats By Dr Dre HD Headphone Orange From Monster Murray contributed to this article. Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com

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