The reality of Britain’s war in Afghanistan Table of contents 01 Preface

02 Crisis in Afghanistan

06 The human costs of the war

09 Britain’s dirty war

12 Militarising aid

15 The privatisation of war

18 Take action Preface 01

War on Want was founded 60 years set back development prospects still further ago when The Guardian published a in one of the poorest countries in the world. letter from Victor Gollancz calling for people to join him in an urgent In publishing this report, War on Want seeks campaign against world poverty and to open a new debate on the occupation of militarism. At that time Britain was Afghanistan. All three major political parties fighting an unwinnable war in Asia – in the UK favour keeping British forces in the Korean War – and Gollancz asked Afghanistan until 2015, and maintaining a all who agreed with his call for a strategic presence in the country for years negotiated end to that war to send him after that. Yet it is becoming increasingly a postcard marked with the single word clear that the US and UK military presence ‘yes’. Within a month 10,000 people had is a central part of the problem in Afghanistan, responded, and War on Want was born. not the solution. War on Want calls on the UK government to withdraw British troops Today the UK is mired in another unwinnable from Afghanistan immediately, and to support war in Asia, this time in Afghanistan. As the a political solution under UN auspices based US-led occupation enters its 10th year, on the Afghan people’s self-determination, casualties have risen among Afghan civilians security and human rights. and NATO forces alike, making the last 12 months the bloodiest of the conflict to date. The future of Afghanistan must not be The intensified militarisation of Afghanistan determined by the self-interest of the USA, over recent months has led not to more UK and other occupying powers. We owe security but to greater insecurity, both in it to the Afghan people to stand up for their Afghanistan itself and increasingly in rights and to end the occupation of their neighbouring Pakistan as well. Coalition country, so that the process of reconstruction commanders are now openly voicing their can at last begin. Just as with Korea 60 doubts as to the future. years ago, War on Want is calling for an immediate negotiated settlement to the While the Afghan people pay the highest war in Afghanistan. We invite all those who price for the continuing foreign occupation, believe in human dignity and justice to join not everyone has been made poorer by the us in this call. war. Private military and security companies – many of them British – have profited greatly from new coalition contracts, while the privatisation of key sectors of the economy is designed primarily to benefit multinational investors rather than the Afghan people. John Hilary Aided by the World Bank and other donors, Executive Director this ideologically driven strategy threatens to War on Want Crisis in Afghanistan 02

n 6

a Afghanistan is the UK government’s £11 billion. At a time of economic crisis, t s i

n “most important” foreign policy and with massive cuts being planned across the a h

g national security issue, according to public sector in the UK, more and more f A

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n Prime Minister David Cameron. The people are questioning why NATO member i

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a current war in Afghanistan has now countries are spending such sums fighting an w

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’ entered its 10th year, longer than both unwinnable war in Afghanistan, and what they n i a

t the First World War and Second World hope to achieve. i r B War combined. According to the latest f o

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t timetable for withdrawal, British i l of British people support a a combat forces could still remain in the e r 2 withdrawal of British troops e country for a further four years. Over h 7 T 74% either ‘soon’ or ‘immediately’.

e 1,450 US service personnel and 350 m

a British personnel have been killed in G

t of Americans say the war a Afghanistan to date. The most recent e 8 r is ‘not worth fighting’. G

year, 2010, was the bloodiest for foreign

e 53 % h

T troops, with 711 killed compared with 521 during 2009. 3 of Afghans in the south 70 % of the country, where the Afghanistan has borne the brunt of decades majority of NATO troops of foreign intervention and conflict, and as a are based, say military actions result is now one of the poorest countries in in their area were bad for the world. For ordinary Afghans, the situation the Afghan people, and 74% resulting from the war is terrible. Thousands believe it is wrong to work 9 of civilians have been killed and injured since with foreign forces. 2001, human rights are deteriorating and millions of Afghans rely on food aid to avoid starvation. 4 The impact of military A decade of war intervention can be seen in figures from the The current phase of US and British military United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, operations in Afghanistan began in October which reveal that one in four of all refugees 2001, when US-led forces destroyed al-Qaida the agency deals with worldwide comes bases in the country and removed the Taliban from Afghanistan. 5 from power. There are at present two military operations ongoing in Afghanistan: The Afghan government remains mired in corruption and unwilling or unable to • Operation Enduring Freedom , satisfy people’s basic needs. Meanwhile, a US operation in the east and south of the USA and Britain are turning Afghanistan Afghanistan along the Pakistan border; and into one of the most militarised countries • International Security Assistance in the world, while privatising the economy Force (ISAF) , a NATO-led operation and outsourcing warfare to private armies to which the USA and Britain are the and militias. The combined effect of these largest troop contributors. There are actions is to undermine any development currently around 135,000 NATO troops prospects for the next generation. in Afghanistan. 10

The USA has spent over $223 billion on the In May 2006 British forces, acting as part of war since 2001, while Britain has spent over ISAF, were deployed to the southern province A camp for internally displaced people in Kabul 03 P h o t o :

G u y

S m a l l m a n

of Helmand, a mainly desert region bordering In 2006-07 public opinion began to shift Pakistan. Since then the war has steadily in favour of anti-government elements escalated. There are currently around in unstable areas, and by late 2008 the 10,000 British troops in Afghanistan. 11 population was voluntarily providing support to anti-government forces. 13 Soon after the British deployment to Helmand, in summer 2006, there was a major These forces comprise a variety of escalation in the conflict. The following year groups, not just the Taliban. The major witnessed a further deterioration in the groups are the Quetta Shura Taliban security situation, and by 2008 nearly half the (based in Quetta, Pakistan); the Haqqani country was effectively a no-go area for the Network, named after Jalaluddin international aid community. One academic Haqqani, a leading warlord; and the paper by two members of the UN mission in Hezb-e-Islami, led by another veteran Afghanistan, UNAMA, notes that ISAF’s warlord, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. military operations since 2001 have “pushed” US intelligence describes the different anti-government elements “towards active forces as “localised”, with nearly all groups insurgency”. 12 During the four years of 2001- not so much religiously motivated as 05, evidence suggests that the Afghan vying for control of territory, mineral population largely supported the government. wealth and smuggling routes. 14 04 n

a A confidential August 2009 report by US The Taliban now has ‘shadow governors’ t s i

n General Stanley McChrystal, at that time the in 33 out of 34 Afghan provinces, and a a

h 18

g overall military commander in Afghanistan, permanent presence in 80% of the country. f A

n stated that “the overall situation is The NGO Safety Office, which advises i

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a deteriorating” and that NATO faced a organisations working in Afghanistan, w

s 15 ’ “resilient and growing insurgency”. Attacks describes the Taliban as “a movement n i a

t using improvised explosive devices (IEDs, anticipating authority and one which has i r B or roadside bombs) have increased from already obtained a complex momentum f o 16 19 y

t 308 in 2004 to 7,155 in 2009. From July to that NATO will be incapable of reversing”. i l

a September 2010 attacks on coalition forces Indeed, ISAF’s Director of Intelligence notes e r

e were up 59% compared with the same period that “the Afghan insurgency can sustain h T

17

e the previous year. itself indefinitely” since small arms are m

a available throughout the region and IEDs G

t 20 a are easily made. e r G

e h T

Map of Afghanistan provinces and neighbouring countries ©

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R e v i e w

5 0 ,

M a r c h - A p r i l

2 0 0 8 Why is Britain really in Afghanistan? 05

In order to justify the cost in human life intervention is necessary to uphold our and resources expended in Afghanistan, interests, like for example free trade British government officials have routes, for example to prevent regional repeatedly said they are fighting the instabilities which could have a negative war for reasons of UK national security impact on our chances in terms of and to prevent terrorist attacks in the trade, jobs and income.” Koehler was UK. 21 Officials have also claimed that forced to resign his presidency following the war is to advance development and these comments. 25 to improve human rights, especially women’s rights. In addition to its other strategic interests, the USA has long promoted Yet British government ministers and a natural gas pipeline through military leaders have also given other Afghanistan. 26 The proposal, originally reasons for fighting in Afghanistan, drawn up in the mid-1990s, envisages many of which have gone largely a route that would take gas from unreported in the media. General Turkmenistan through Afghanistan Sir Richard Dannatt, then Chief of the to Pakistan and India. Although work General Staff, said in a speech in 2007 on constructing the pipeline has failed that Britain “is well into a new and to make progress due to the security deadly Great Game in Afghanistan situation, the governments of – only this time with a different Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan adversary”. 22 The Great Game is a term and India reaffirmed their commitment used for the strategic wars that took to the project at a signing ceremony in place in the 19th century between the December 2010. US Assistant Secretary British Empire and Russian Empire of State, Richard Boucher, confirmed over control of Central Asia, when in 2007 that “one of our goals is to Afghanistan was used as a buffer state stabilise Afghanistan... so that energy through which to protect British can flow to the south”. 27 interests in India. The war in Afghanistan is also Today Afghanistan continues to be a intimately related to Britain’s chessboard across which global and ongoing ability to effect military regional powers attempt to expand intervention. UK Defence Minister their control over the resource-rich Liam Fox MP has stated that a Middle East and Central Asia. The withdrawal of troops would “damage USA considers Afghanistan of critical the credibility of NATO” and “would geopolitical importance for its long- be a shot in the arm to violent term interests in Central and South jihadists everywhere, re-energising Asia, as well as for the country’s violent radical and extreme significance as a neighbour of Iran. 23 Islamism”. 28 An additional factor in British interests in the region are Afghanistan is the perceived need for closely aligned with those of the USA: Britain to hold its own militarily in “The entire region in which Afghanistan relation to the USA. General Dannatt sits is of vital strategic importance to said in May 2009 that Britain’s “military the United Kingdom,” stated the then reputation and credibility, unfairly or Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth in not, have been called into question at July 2009. 24 several levels in the eyes of our most important ally as a result of some In May 2010, following a visit to aspects of the Iraq campaign”. Afghanistan, German President Horst Therefore, Dannatt continued, Koehler noted that German military “Taking steps to restore this action abroad was vital to protecting credibility will be pivotal – and its economic interests: “Military Afghanistan provides an opportunity”. 29 The human costs of the war 06 n

a The number of civilians killed in at least 27 civilians were reportedly t s i

n Afghanistan in the five years from killed in a NATO air strike in southern a

h 33

g 2006 to 2010 has been conservatively Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s Independent f A

n estimated at over 8,000. Roughly Human Rights Commission has reported that i

r

a a third of these are attributable to in the first 12 days of Operation Mushtarak, w

s 30 ’ coalition or government forces. the major British offensive in Helmand that n i a

t Most of those killed by coalition forces began in February 2010, 28 civilians were i r B have been the victims of bombing. The killed, including 13 children, most apparently f o 34 y

t USA and its allies stepped up aerial by pro-government artillery. i l

a attacks on Afghanistan from 2006, and e r

e in 2007 nearly 3,000 bombing sorties A high proportion of civilian casualties are h T

31

e were flown. children. According to the UN Secretary- m

a General’s Special Representative for Children G

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a In an effort to gain public support, former and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, e r G NATO commander General McChrystal a total of 346 children were killed during e h

T issued a new tactical directive in July 2009 2009, including 131 from coalition air strikes, authorising air strikes and indirect fire 22 from coalition night searches and 128 “under very specific conditions”. 32 Yet 2010 by anti-government elements. 35 UNAMA saw significant fatalities attributable to reported that the number of child deaths pro-government forces. One of the deadliest in the first six months of 2010 had increased attacks occurred on 21 February 2010, when by 55% over the same period in 2009. 36

Mass graves in Granai, Farah Province P h o t o :

G u y

S m a l l m a n 07

CAREFUL AND PROPORTIONATE?

British and US leaders stress that all steps are taken to minimise civilian casualties. Yet General McChrystal’s confidential report of August 2009 concedes that ISAF’s military strategy is causing “unnecessary collateral damage”. 37 Leaders publicly stress that their attacks are proportionate. Yet US Lt Col David Kilcullen has stated that US aerial attacks on the Afghan-Pakistan border have killed 14 al-Qaida leaders at the expense of over 700 civilian lives. 38 As one interviewee from the south of Afghanistan recently told the Open Society Foundation: “If even one Taliban enters the village, then Americans bomb the entire village.” 39

Poverty and development • Over three million Afghans are refugees War is one of the chief causes of poverty, or internally displaced 46 destroying vital infrastructure such as schools and hospitals and putting agricultural land out It is no surprise that General McChrystal’s of use for years to come. Afghanistan has 2009 confidential report concedes: “Afghans borne the brunt of decades of foreign are frustrated and weary after eight years intervention and conflict, and as a result is without evidence of the progress they one of the poorest countries in the world. anticipated,” or that large numbers of Afghans Afghanistan was ranked 181 out of 182 “do not trust [the government] to provide countries on the UN’s Human Development their essential needs such as security, justice Index for 2009, and 135 out of 135 on the and basic services”. 47 Human Poverty Index. 40 The UN Security Council notes that 25 times as many Afghans Improvements in human rights? die every year from undernutrition and The removal of the Taliban in 2001 created poverty as from violence. 41 the conditions for improvements in human rights. Yet most reports suggest that much Quality of life indicators in Afghanistan are of the positive progress witnessed during truly alarming: 2001-2005 has now ended, and that human • 1 in 5 children dies before the age of rights are again deteriorating. For many five, and Afghanistan has the highest Afghans, especially those outside the capital Kabul, improvements were already slight or 42 infant mortality rate in the world non-existent; vicious warlords in rural areas • 1 in 8 Afghan women die from causes can be just as committed to enforcing sharia related to pregnancy and childbirth 43 law as the Taliban. Malalai Joya, a woman MP who was expelled from the Afghan • Life expectancy is 44.6 years , the parliament, notes that the government lowest in the world 44 of Hamid Karzai is “full of warlords and extremists who are brothers in creed of • 73% of Afghan people have no access the Taliban”, notably in the judiciary, which to safe drinking water 45 “is dominated by fundamentalists”. 48 P h o t o :

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S p a u l l 08 n

a General McChrystal’s confidential report Progress for women t s i

n of August 2009 admitted that “a number of Women’s rights, which had improved a h

g Afghan government officials, at all levels, are following the ending of the extreme f A

n reported to be complicit” with criminal oppression of the Taliban, are also now i

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a networks. Indeed: deteriorating again. The “vast majority of w

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’ Afghan women suffer a significant human n i a

t There are no clear lines separating insurgent rights deficit”, notes a report by UNAMA i r B groups, criminal networks (including the and the Office of the United Nations High f o

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t narcotics networks) and corrupt GIRoA Commissioner for Human Rights. Women i l

a [government] officials. Malign actors within in virtually all areas of public life, such as e r

e GIRoA support insurgent groups directly, civil servants, politicians and journalists, h T

e support criminal networks that are linked to have been the subject of targeted killings or m

a insurgents, and support corruption that helps violent personal attacks by both anti- and G

t 49 a feed the insurgency. pro-government elements or religious e r G forces. For ordinary women, violence is e h

T Afghanistan is ranked 176 out of “an everyday occurrence in all parts of 178 countries in terms of the extent the country”, particularly rape and other of corruption, as measured by forms of sexual violence. 52 Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index. 50 A major recent blow to women’s rights was the passing of the Shia Personal Status Human rights abusers have continued to Law, which gives a husband the right to enjoy almost complete impunity since withdraw basic maintenance for his wife President Karzai secured his reelection if she refuses to obey his sexual demands. 53 through a series of deals with former Across the country, between 60% and 80% warlords implicated in war crimes during of all marriages are reported to be forced the 1990s. Afghans continue to face arbitrary marriages, while women who seek to flee detention and are frequently denied access such marriages are often detained and to a lawyer, while court proceedings are prosecuted. 54 One prominent women’s often marred by corruption. The Afghanistan group, the Revolutionary Association of Independent Human Rights Commission Women of Afghanistan, has long campaigned (AIHRC), part-funded by the British on the basis that women’s emancipation in government, has come under increasing Afghanistan is not attainable under the pressure from the Afghan government over current occupation, or while the present its advocacy of human rights, and has been corrupt government provides key positions threatened with legal action. 51 to human rights abusers. 55 Britain’s dirty war 09

The use of remote-controlled completed 15,000 operational hours’ flying in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Afghanistan over the last three years, 5,000 of or ‘drones’, for high-tech military which were flown in the six months up to surveillance, bombings and ‘targeted’ October 2010. 63 killings of militants has increased significantly in Afghanistan in the past Another drone, the Hermes 450, two years. There have been no official is not owned by the Ministry of Defence reports of civilian deaths as a result (MoD) but is provided through a service of drone attacks in Afghanistan, and provision contract with U-TacS, a joint they tend to be used in remote and venture of the French company, Thales, and inaccessible areas. 56 In Pakistan, their the Israeli military company, Elbit Systems. 64 use has caused more than 600 civilian Elbit develops and supplies UAVs to the deaths – around 10 civilian deaths Israeli army, which has used the drones for every militant killed. 57 for military attacks, civilian surveillance and targeted assassinations in the West The UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Bank and Gaza. 65 Executions, Philip Alston, has warned the USA that its use of drones for arbitrary As of November 2009, the British had extrajudicial executions in Afghanistan and deployed 10 Hermes 450s in Afghanistan, Pakistan may well violate international flown remotely from Camp Bastion, Britain’s humanitarian law and international human main military base in the country. 66 These rights law. 58 According to Alston, “In a drones are unarmed, but the intelligence situation in which there is no disclosure of they collect is used for air strikes. 67 The who has been killed, for what reason, and previous government indicated it would whether innocent civilians have died, the legal double its Reaper capability and deploy principle of international accountability is, new Watchkeeper drones to replace the by definition, comprehensively violated.” 59 Hermes, also to be supplied by U-TacS. 68 Britain is also developing its own Yet the US Air Force is flying at least 20 ‘sovereign’ armed drones designed Predator drones a day over Afghanistan. to fly pre-programmed missions. 69 From the beginning of 2009 until early 2010, Predator and Reaper drones fired at least British forces are also using ‘enhanced 184 missiles and 66 laser-guided bombs at blast’ or thermobaric weapons, which use targets in Afghanistan. 60 combined heat and pressure to kill people over a wide area by sucking the air out of Britain’s drone programme lungs and destroying internal organs. 70 The Britain is also using drones in Afghanistan. 61 MoD purchased what it describes as ‘blast These were initially deployed unarmed, fragmentation warhead’ missiles from the but are now equipped with 500lb laser-guided USA in May 2008. Media reports suggest bombs and Hellfire missiles. As of July their use by British forces may have 2010, British Reaper drones had fired increased in 2009: by May 2009 Apache 97 missiles at targets in Afghanistan. 62 attack helicopters had fired over 20 The RAF records that Reapers have of the missiles in Afghanistan. 71 1

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to Afghanistan. 89 The Obama administration has announced the closure of the CIA’s secret prisons, but not those run by other parts of the US covert establishment – it appears that the facilities in Afghanistan are part of a continuing US programme to ‘render’ prisoners from various countries. 90 This is the likely reason for US authorities barring the courts from having access to foreign prisoners at Bagram. 91

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P Secretary John Hutton admitted that h o

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S and that the men were then transported m 92 a to Bagram airbase. One former SAS officer l l m

a has stated that “hundreds” of individuals have n been detained by British forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and that they are “routinely” handed the ‘Salt Pit’, while UN experts investigating over to US forces in the knowledge that they secret detention centres were also told of will be tortured. 93 three other prisons: one in the Panjshir valley, north of Kabul, and two others identified as British residents tortured Rissat and Rissat 2. 85 A number of British residents – including Bisher Al-Rawi, Jamil El-Banna, Omar Over 4,000 people have been held at Deghayes and Binyam Mohamed – have been Bagram; as of December 2009, a total of illegally detained in Afghanistan before being 757 people were still in custody there. 86 transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention US lawyer Tina Foster, who is arguing several camp. Deghayes and Mohamed have stated cases on behalf of Bagram detainees, says that British intelligence officers were involved that from the beginning, “Bagram was worse in their ‘rendition’. 94 Al-Rawi has described than Guantanamo” and “has always been a Guantanamo as a “holiday camp” compared torture chamber”. Former Bagram inmates to Afghanistan. 95 He told UN experts that at report sleep deprivation, beatings, rape and the ‘Dark Prison’ there were no lights or various forms of sexual humiliation. 87 Two heating and that all the guards wore hoods Afghan detainees died at Bagram prison in with small eye holes, and never spoke. His 2002 after being beaten by American soldiers cell contained only a bucket to use as a toilet, and hung by their arms from the ceiling an old piece of carpet, and a rusty steel of isolation cells. 88 bar across the width of the cell to hang people from. Very loud music was played Some of Bagram’s detainees have been continuously and he was subjected to sleep captured by US forces abroad and ‘rendered’ deprivation for up to three days. 96 1

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S m a l l m a n

reduction”. 109 The TSS stated that the Bank In addition, USAID projects have helped should compile a register of state assets and to privatise three state-owned banks and appoint a body to oversee the privatisation the telecommunications industry. USAID process. Public utilities could be “run on is also working to “seek private investment” commercial principles” and there was in order to develop the Shibirghan gas fields “considerable scope for corporatising in northern Afghanistan, and has helped to state-owned firms and private sector “transfer assets to a new commercialized” provision of infrastructure”. 110 Also Afghan Electrical Utility: Da Afghanistan envisaged was that the health sector would Breshna Sherkat. 114 be “contracted out” to NGOs and “any interested private sector entity”, meaning, Aid acts as the facilitator of privatisation, in effect, that it was being privatised. 111 paving the way for companies, especially from the USA, to reshape the Afghan A privatisation policy was adopted in economy according to the needs of a November 2005, since which time over handful of foreign investors intending to 50 state-owned enterprises have been make large profits. One USAID-funded slated for privatisation or liquidation. This project – the Economic Growth and policy is being led by USAID, which openly Governance Initiative – was awarded in states that its aid seeks to promote 2009 to the US company Bearing “export-oriented business development” Point/Deloitte. It intends to help the and “trade policy liberalization”. 112 USAID’s government “enhance the regulatory ‘Land titling and economic restructuring’ environment for key sectors” such as energy project – which was implemented by the and mining, in order to “attract investment”. private consultancy Emerging Market Groups Indeed, the project aims to “encourage and ran from 2004 to 2009 – privatised 25 greater participation by the private sector state-owned enterprises in the agricultural into [sic] government policy formulation”. sector, transferred $12 million in assets to This project involves collaboration with the private sector and identified 1,302 the UK government’s Department for state-owned land parcels for privatisation. 113 International Development (DFID). 115 1

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The privatisation of war 15

Afghanistan has become one of the most militarised countries on earth, with the security sector far and away A FEW MORE GUNS the largest single element of national Afghanistan is already awash with expenditure. In 2009, the Afghan weapons, but Britain and the USA government reported that security are helping the country acquire a few spending by the Defence and Interior more. From 2008 until March 2010, ministries accounted for fully 47% of Britain exported £32.5 million worth the country’s core operating budget. 127 of arms to Afghanistan, including over 18,000 ‘assault rifles’ and over 800 British policy is to build the capacity machine guns. 133 In the years 2001-09, of the Afghan police and army so that they Afghanistan imported $621 million are able to provide security throughout the (in constant 1990 dollars) worth of country. Yet policing in Afghanistan has military equipment; $396 million of become increasingly militarised. The Royal this came from the USA, of which United Services Institute suggests that the $280 million worth was supplied in 2009 alone. 134 Afghan police are “excessively armed, with Rocket Propelled Grenade anti-tank weaponry not uncommon”. 128 operations’, including detention and The US police training programme interrogation. 135 PMSCs often have more has since 2005 been directed by the US of an interest in promoting war than peace: military. Its Focused District Development one British contractor recently said that, for Programme, launched in December 2007, his firm, the more the security situation in provides police trainees with seven weeks’ Afghanistan deteriorated, the better. 136 instruction in military tactics, weapons use, survival strategies and counterinsurgency The number of armed private security operations – and only one week of training contractors working for the US Department in basic police skills. 129 Cadets at the Helmand of Defense doubled from 5,000 to more than Police Training Centre are being trained not 10,000 during 2009. 137 Most PMSC employees by civilians but by MoD Police and Royal are Afghan nationals, and many are former Military Police. 130 It has also hired the private members of militias. 138 One US Senate military company ArmorGroup to provide report recently concluded that Afghan police mentors in Afghanistan. 131 warlords associated with US-funded security contractors were involved in Private armies murder, bribery and kidnapping. 139 Alongside the US and British military in Afghanistan is a ‘shadow army’ of private US mercenary companies such as DynCorp military and security companies (PMSCs) and Xe Services (formerly Blackwater) have operating largely outside legal or democratic received hundreds of millions of dollars in control. Many of the same companies have contracts for operations in Afghanistan. also been operating in Iraq, also outside Xe/Blackwater, which has received tens of effective regulation. 132 These forces undertake millions of dollars in State Department a range of activities such as close protection, funding for personnel security, is run in escorting convoys, surveillance and training, part by CIA veterans, and has allegedly but are also alleged to be used for ‘black played a role in the US secret assassination Local tribesmen in Farah Province

16 n

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Olive Security, PAGE Associates, and n Saladin. 143 The Foreign Office first employed such companies in Afghanistan in April 2004. Between then and 2009 its annual spending In May 2010, Britain's commander in on private security increased tenfold, southern Afghanistan, Major General Nick and in the three years 2007-09, the UK Carter, said that private security companies government spent £62.8 million on PMSCs. 144 in Afghanistan operated in a “culture of Almost all of the Foreign Office’s money has impunity”, and admitted there was no gone to one company, ArmorGroup (which system of registering guns or vehicles. 147 is now part of G4S), for projects involving US and Afghan officials have admitted “mobile and static security”. 145 ArmorGroup that PMSC mercenaries protecting was the focus of a recent US Senate inquiry NATO supply convoys in Kandahar province alleging that the company “relied on a series regularly fire wildly into villages they pass. of warlords to provide armed men” who One US Army captain said: “Especially were engaged in murder and bribery and as they go through the populated areas, “threatened to attack Afghan Ministry of they tend to squeeze the trigger first and Defence personnel”. 146 ask questions later.” 148 17

In August 2010, President Karzai announced Forces on combat operations and intelligence that eight private security companies would gathering. 152 In Kandahar, one CIA-backed be banned from Afghanistan by the end of the militia has been accused of murder, rape and year, a decision which reportedly “caught extortion, and is said to be regarded by local Western officials by surprise” and “rattled people as little more than a death squad. 153 Afghanistan's foreign community”. 149 However, under pressure from NATO commanders and US Special Forces have armed the Shinwari foreign embassies, Karzai later rolled back the tribe in Nangarhar province after they rose plan, saying that firms involved in military or against the local Taliban and drove anti- diplomatic security would still be allowed to government forces out of a string of operate in Afghanistan. 150 villages. 154 By January 2010, the USA was pledging to give Shinwari leaders $1 million Working with militias for development projects if they agreed to ISAF and coalition forces have recruited, “support the American-backed government, formed or armed 1,000-1,500 illegal battle insurgents and burn down the home ‘Armed Support Groups’ to perform of any Afghan who harboured Taliban functions such as providing security at guerrillas”. 155 forward operating bases and to escort convoys. Hundreds of millions of dollars Other similar programmes have been have been spent on these militia groups, promoted, echoing policy previously adopted which are frequently run by former military in Iraq. From 2006 to 2008, the Afghan commanders who are responsible for human government recruited thousands of men from rights abuses or involved in illegal drugs and villages in the south of the country, forming a black market economies. 151 force known as the Afghan National Auxiliary Police. 156 One report suggests that, in some Investigative journalist Bob Woodward claims southern provinces, nearly one third of the there are 3,000 CIA-backed paramilitaries in trainees were never seen again after they had Afghanistan, working closely with US Special been given a gun, uniform and brief training. 157

LICENCE TO KILL UK companies are some of the biggest players in the private military and security industry, but remain unregulated and unaccountable. As the British government is plunged deeper into conflict in Afghanistan, national regulation is urgently needed to hold these corporate mercenaries to account.

The UK’s coalition government has failed to respond to calls from civil society for robust regulation of PMSCs, and instead is pressing ahead with plans for a voluntary code of conduct. Yet a voluntary code of conduct would leave civilians in war zones like Afghanistan exposed to the risk of further abuses by mercenaries working for private armies, and fails to address the serious issues raised by the outsourcing of war to private companies. Legislation should be introduced to ban private armies from taking part in direct combat, and to ensure that any government department which outsources a service to a PMSC should be responsible for its conduct. 1

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1. ‘David Cameron pledges more funds 16. M McCormick, P Allen and A Dant, 31. A H Cordesman, US Airpower in for Afghan IED threat’, BBC News, ‘Afghanistan war logs: IED attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan: 2004-2007 , 10 June 2010 civilians, coalition and Afghan troops’, Centre for Strategic and International The Guardian , 26 July 2010 Studies, 2007 2. P Wintour, ‘Afghanistan withdrawal before 2015, says David Cameron’, 17. ‘Quarterly Data Report, 3rd Quarter 32. Afghanistan Annual Report on The Guardian , 26 June 2010 2010’, Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, Protection of Civilians in Armed October 2010 Conflict , UNAMA, 2009 3. ‘Coalition Military Fatalities By Year’, iCasualties, http://icasualties.org/ 18. M Flynn, State of the Insurgency: 33. 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H Cooper and M Landler, ‘Targeted fund, 14 May 2009, at 2010 , Transparency International, Killing Is New US Focus in Afghanistan’, http://coalitionofwomen.org/home/ November 2010 New York Times , 31 July 2010 english/articles/norway-fund 51. World Report 2010 , ‘Afghanistan – 78. M Evans, D Haynes and A Loyd, ‘SAS 66. Hansard , House of Commons, Events of 2009’, Human Rights take on Taleban in Afghanistan after 9 November 2009, Col 48W; K Watch, January 2010 defeating al-Qaeda in Iraq’, The Times , Sengupta and Nad-e-Ali, ‘Drones: 30 May 2009 52. Silence is Violence: End the Abuse silent killers, or a vital source of of Women in Afghanistan , UNAMA information against the Taliban?’, 79. Mid Year Report 2010 Protection of and OHCHR, Kabul, 8 July 2009 The Independent, 15 August 2009 Civilians in Armed Conflict , UNAMA, August 2010 53. M Hasan, ‘A Shia law? Not in my 67. K Sengupta and Nad-e-Ali, ‘Drones: name’, The Guardian , 20 August 2009; silent killers, or a vital source of 80. 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