Team Approach Spreads in Afghanistan, but Security Worries Remain

US military officials have developed hybrid groups, comprising soldiers and humanitarian aid workers, to hasten the reconstruction of Afghanistan's unruly provinces. The groups, known as Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), are designed to help extend the influence of Afghanistan's government beyond Kabul. So far, however, PRTs have found that the influence of warlords in the provinces will not be easily reduced.

Three US PRTs are operating in Afghan provinces – in Kunduz, Gardez and Bamiyan. In addition, a 72-member British PRT started working in late July in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. "PRTs are an innovative means to extend central government authority to the regions, enmesh local government with the central government and help with reconstruction" said General F.L. "Buster" Hagenback, the acting commander of US forces in Afghanistan. "Over time, as security improves, these military-led PRTs will mutate into [a] civilian organization,"

The British team, like its American models, does not take sides in inter-ethnic fights. "Primarily, our objective is to spread the good word of outreach of the central government," Jacqueline Lawson-Smith, a Kabul-based British Foreign Office official, said. "We will facilitate security sector reform and help train police, civil servants, judges and educators."

The reconstruction teams can do little to force an end to ethnic fighting, though British military units have comparable experience in Yugoslavia and Ireland. "We don't favor any faction, nor are we there to intervene militarily, but we will help the United Nations in brokering ceasefires," says Lawson-Smith.

Initially, international non-governmental agencies strongly criticized the PRT concept for blurring the distinction between soldiers and aid workers. [For background, see the Eurasia Insight archives]. However, in the absence of any other plans to send international peacekeepers outside Kabul, aid agencies sound less critical today.

According to the Pentagon, they consist of soldiers alongside civilians from the State Department, the Justice Department and the Agency for International Development. The Pentagon says that staff from the United States Department of Agriculture will soon join the teams. Nonetheless, critics say, the teams rely heavily on reservists who occupy their posts just long enough to obtain a basic understanding of Afghanistan's ethnic and tribal complexities before rotating home. Likewise, critics charge that the teams do not intervene in "green on green conflicts," or local infighting among various armed factions.

Violence remains a relatively common occurrence. On August 4, according to media reports, British PRT members left a disarmament demonstration convened by Mazar warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum before a blast at the site killed 13 of Dostum's loyalists and injured 21 others. Around Mazar-i-Sharif, more than 1,000 Afghans have died in clashes among militias loyal to various ethnic Uzbek, Tajik and Hazara warlords.

The American-led coalition plans to expand the PRT program, aiming to create a total of 16. On August 4, officials from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) raised the idea of cooperating more closely with the teams when NATO takes over command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on August 11. Other anti-terrorism coalition members also plan to get more involved: New Zealand, for example, will take over the Bamiyan team in the next several weeks, and Germany may establish one after it turns over the international force to NATO.

While allies are targeting Jalalabad, Kandahar and Charikar as potential new PRT sites, the British are promising to work more aggressively to bring warlords into negotiations. There is hardly consensus, though, that the PRT concept can resolve Afghanistan's security crisis.

In Bamiyan, American PRT members report slow but real progress. "In six months there has not been a single violent incident against us," says Lieut. Col. Mark Shnur, a civil affairs officer and army reservist. The PRT in Bamiyan, due for relief by New Zealand, is working to rebuild Bamiyan University. American-led missions bombed the university in 2001 because the Taliban were using it as an ammunition depot. Now American military engineers are supervising the rebuilding of 14 classrooms; 360 students will reportedly get slots.

If this project succeeds, it will also bring some activity to the threadbare regional economy. "The Americans are doing a good job, we are all very pleased because until now we have seen little of the reconstruction money that has come to Kabul," says Hameedullah, an ethnic Hazara engineer working on the university. From his point of view, stabilization requires a long time horizon. "Maybe my kids can now grow up to become doctors," he adds.