Kabul to disband private security firms

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/158992.html

Afghanistan's president has ordered the Interior Ministry to intensify efforts to shut down domestic and foreign private security firms in the country.

Hamid Karzai issued the order one day after rejecting US calls to nearly double private security firms in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, the US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W. Eikenberry told Karzai thousands of extra private security guards needed to be recruited to provide security escorts to foreign workers in Afghanistan

"It turned into a serious discussion, the president said we are trying to dismantle private security firms but you want to add another 25,000 to the firms," AFP quoted an unnamed senior official at Karzai's palace as saying.

Karzai said the plan ran counter to the goals of strengthening Afghan forces and national institution-building, the official said.

"This means you are creating parallel forces to Afghan security institutions and this means you do not want private security companies to be dismantled," the official cited the president as saying.

In August, Karzai gave private security companies four months to end operations in the country. He later extended the deadline under pressure from the West.

Karzai had earlier accused foreign security contractors in the country of operating as militias, saying that these firms are only worsening the security situation in Afghanistan.

Some of them have been accused of killing civilians without facing punishment.

Kabul has confirmed the presence of 52 foreign private security companies, including notorious American security firm Xe Services LLC -- formerly known as Blackwater -- in Afghanistan.

The company has been struggling with a trail of legal cases and civil lawsuits, including one for killing 17 Iraqi civilians during a Baghdad shootout in 2007.

Earlier in June, the CIA reportedly admitted that Blackwater had been loading bombs on US drones that target suspected militants in neighboring Pakistan.

Most of the security contractors are believed to have close ties with Afghan warlords and are also accused of contributing to the rising number of civilian casualties in the country.

Private security firms have been a source of controversy since the start of the war nine years ago.

A US Senate report has also revealed that the contractors often fail to vet local recruits and end up hiring Taliban militants.

Karzai has recently said the US-led foreign powers are interfering in his country's internal affairs and hinder the implementation of laws.

"I ask our foreign friends not to interfere in our internal affairs, not to interfere in our constitution,'' Karzai said at a ceremony on Tuesday commemorating the seventh's anniversary of the ratification of Afghan Constitution in downtown Kabul.

"They must stop meddling in our implementation of the law in our country.''

Karzai has emphasized that the Afghans have the ability to rule and govern the country on their own