How ready are the Afghan forces after US withdrawal?
Bashir Safi
December 23, 2019
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A national army forces stands guard during the graduation ceremony of newly Afghan National Army soldiers after a three month training program at the Afghan Military Academy in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Oct. 28, 2019. (Rahmat Gul/AP)
On Sept. 28, 2019, for the first time in nearly two decades, the Afghan security forces managed to secure the country’s presidential election without foreign support. Although the multi-nation U.S.-led coalition earlier provided critical enabling support to Afghan forces, only Afghan forces (ANDSF) were deployed on Election Day.
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More than 72,000 soldiers, which included military and police forces, were deployed to secure polling sites across Afghanistan. In addition to securing polling stations, they simultaneously encouraged people to cast their votes as they fended off a variety of terrorist threats. As a result, insurgents were unable to disrupt logistics or mount major attacks on Election Day.
To a large extent, the success of the Afghan forces’ ability to secure Afghan elections were a result of years of important reforms employed by the Afghan government. More specifically, the accelerated reforms put in place by President Ashraf Ghani in the security sectors, including retiring the former jihadi-leaders-turned-army-generals, sit at the heart of those reforms. Instead, Ghani promoted foreign-trained younger officers, who brought in a variety of training experiences from other countries, including the United States, Britain, Turkey and India. Last year, Ghani retired 164 army generals as part of his long-term plans to reform and professionalize the security forces through implementation of the inherent law.
Here’s how Afghan security forces supported the 2019 Afghanistan presidential election
The leaders of the ANDSF learned from the last elections and trained its forces to ensure the Taliban did not interfere in any way in the solemn voting process, says the author of this commentary.
Col. Abdul Rahman Rahmani
Nice one