All private security firms must close: Afghanistan

[babylonsister]

All private security firms must close: Afghanistan

11 hours ago

KABUL (AFP) — Authorities in Afghanistan want to close down all private security firms operating in the country, many of them illegally, President Hamid Karzai's office said.

About nine unlicensed companies have already been shut down in a crackdown that has been under way in Kabul for weeks, according to city police.

Under the constitution "only the Afghan government has the right of having and handling weapons, so private companies are against the constitution," the president's spokesman Siamak Hirawi told AFP late Wednesday.

A cabinet meeting Monday argued that the dozens of private security firms were illegal and a source of criminality.

"The session decided that in the long term all private companies should be shut down," he said.

more...

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gUikB4yVqHEf7eGIvBboJprdDPkw

[ellenfl]

1. the important lines . . .

A range of security companies are operating in Afghanistan, from US-based Blackwater to smaller Afghan firm, some of them linked to militias or former warlords.

They guard embassies and other premises or act as bodyguards, while some, like the US-based DynCorp, also train Afghan police.

i love this.

ellen fl

[elehhhhna]

2. K&R this is big.

[flashl]

3. IIRC, there were U.S. free-lancers kidnapping Afghans and holding them in houses. n/t

[Disturbed]

4. Afghanistan ‘Falling into Hands of Taliban’

Afghanistan ‘Falling into Hands of Taliban’

by Richard Norton-Taylor

The Taliban has a permanent presence in 54% of Afghanistan and the country is in serious danger of falling into Taliban hands, according to a report by an independent thinktank with long experience in the area.

Despite tens of thousands of Nato-led troops and billions of dollars in aid poured into the country, the insurgents, driven out by the American invasion in 2001, now control “vast swaths of unchallenged territory, including rural areas, some district centres, and important road arteries”, the Senlis Council says in a report released yesterday.

On the basis of what it calls exclusive research, it warns that the insurgency is also exercising a “significant amount of psychological control, gaining more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people who have a long history of shifting alliances and regime change”.
It says the territory controlled by the Taliban has increased and the frontline is getting closer to Kabul - a warning echoed by the UN which says more and more of the country is becoming a “no go” area for western aid and development workers.

The council goes as far as to state: “It is a sad indictment of the current state of Afghanistan that the question now appears to be not if the Taliban will return to Kabul, but when … and in what form. The oft-stated aim of reaching the city in 2008 appears more viable than ever and it is incumbent upon the international community to implement a new strategic paradigm before time runs out.”

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/22/5391/

“Coalition forces, including many brave Afghans, have brought America, Afghanistan and the world its first victory in the war on terror," the president said. "Afghanistan is no longer a terrorist factory sending thousands of killers into the world." GW Bush- 2004

[eridani]

6. I think he's wrong about the Taliban ever being driven out

They were driven out of the most urban and populated areas. Why would they hang around to fight a kind of war they can't possibly win?

[malaise]

5. Adios mercenaries

Coming to an Iraq near you.

K & R

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. This is a bad year for mercs

first Iraq and now afghanistan

Not that I am crying

Damn mercs, they could go out of bidness tomorrow morning as far as I am concerned

[tuvor]

8. I guess that goes for Canada, too.

It has just been discovered that Canada's military has been hiring out, as well.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=190&topic_id=23131&mesg_id=23131

[CGowen]

9. Is he going to throw out NATO? n/t

[struggle4progress]

10. ... A report by the Swisspeace research institute said that only 35 of about 140 security firms ...

... in Afghanistan are registered with the government. There are between 18,500 and 28,000 armed security contractors in Afghanistan ... Among the main security contracts in Afghanistan is the North Carolina-based Blackwater. Riding machine-gun mounted utility vehicles, armed contractors employed by the American firm have gained a notoriety for shooting first and not bothering to ask questions later ... http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=50579