Afghan National Police


The Afghan National Police, also known as the Afghan Police, is the national police force of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, serving as a single law enforcement agency all across the country. The Afghan Border Police, which had stations along the nation's border and at major airports, was a separate component of the force. The ANP is under the responsibility of the Ministry of Interior Affairs in Kabul, Afghanistan, and is headed by Sirajuddin Haqqani. It has nearly 200,000 members as of April 2023. Furthermore, the GDI are also a part of the secret police agency of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan after the Fall of Kabul in August 2021, and the GCPSU are the special police forces.
The Afghan police traces its roots to the early 18th century when the Hotak dynasty was established in Kandahar followed by Ahmad Shah Durrani's rise to power. It became a strong organized force after 1880 when Emir Abdur Rahman Khan established diplomatic relations with British India. In the 1980s it began receiving training and equipment from the former Soviet Union.
During the presidency of Hamid Karzai, several government agencies from the United States as well as Germany's Bundespolizei and the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence Police began providing training. In 2007, the EU-led mission was heading the civilian policing in Kabul while the United States began establishing training programs in all provinces of Afghanistan. The Afghan police have received basic training from U.S.-led NATO forces. After the fall of Kabul in August 2021, the Afghan police was reorganized and Taliban militants including members of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan's secret police were integrated into its ranks.

History

The national police force of Afghanistan has its origins in the Hotak and Durrani empires in the early 18th century, which had jurisdiction over parts of neighboring countries until the 1893 Durand Line was established between Mortimer Durand of British India and Abdur Rahman Khan of Afghanistan.
In the 1950s, a group of army officers were reassigned to the police forces to develop a new cadre and modernize the police organization. And in the early 1960s, six of the top police students from the Kabul police academy were sent to Munich, Germany to get their master's degrees in criminology and police work. Among those were Abdul Latif Wared, Farouq Barakzai, Farouq Yaqobi, Assadullah Ahmadzai, Sidique Wahidi, Saadullah Yusufi, and some others.
The Afghan police force remained strong throughout the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, with West Germany building a police academy in Kabul in 1989. The police force began disintegrating during the Battle of Kabul which lasted from 1992 to 1996, with the German-built academy also shutting down. The country at that point descended into civil war and then came under the heel of the Taliban government.
After the collapse of the Taliban government in late 2001, there was little in the nation resembling a functional police department as private armed militias of warlords quickly filled the vacuum left behind by a lack of central governance. The Ministry of Interior in Kabul, under the new Karzai government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, exercised little control over provincial police structures and was unable to effectively secure the remote provinces. Most of these problems had originally started after the Soviet-backed government of Mohammad Najibullah fell apart in 1992 and the country entered into a civil war. From 1978 to 1992 the Afghan police had firm control over the country, much thanks to the Soviet Union and other factors related to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan or the Soviet war in the country. Traditionally, police officers were poorly paid, recruited or conscripted from the poorest classes of society and frequently held in contempt by the communities they served. Compounding these factors, over two decades of unrest had also resulted in an illiteracy rate conservatively estimated at over 70% for police recruits.

NATO training programs

Although early efforts had trained 35,000 officers in basic recruit schools during 2003 and 2004, this training was insufficient to strengthen the structures and senior command levels needed to create an effective police force. Germany, as lead nation for police under the Bonn II Agreement, concentrated its efforts on setting up the Kabul Police Academy and drafted the long range blueprint for restructuring the police services. Except for Kunduz Province which had a Provincial Reconstruction Team, Germany's program had only limited reach into the provinces. As the US Department of State International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Bureau's activity at this time was limited in resources and scope, the US Departments of Defense and State, in 2005, decided to shift the implementation of the police training and equipment program to the Office of Security Cooperation-Afghanistan, under the authority of the Commanding General, Combined Forces Command. In 2006, OSC-A became the Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan keeping the OSC-A mission.
The 2005 changes led to an increased impetus to implement significant reform programs, particularly the reform of higher staff levels at the Ministry of the Interior, the placement of police mentors throughout the country, substantial pay increases in the police salary plan and an impending, complete restructuring of the police payroll system. A nationwide reassessment of infrastructure and equipment needs was also undertaken, followed with the distribution of critically needed weapons, ammunition, vehicles, and office/dorm furniture. Although progress has been made in the areas of infrastructure, equipment and payroll distribution, these programs would take some time to reach fruition.
File:130403-A-CE099-001.jpg|thumb|Headquarters of the ANP in Panjwayi, Kandahar Province.
In the late 2000s the number of ANP officers getting killed in the line of duty jumped very sharply, with over 1,600 officers being killed in the years 2008 and 2009. By 2012, Afghan officials estimated that about 200 police officers are killed in the line of duty each month.
In the meantime, ANP members have been accused of massacres and corruption. In 2012, one ANP from Paktia and two from Logar were arrested for kidnapping children. The police confessed to the crime, while one of the kidnapped boys said, "I received a phone call from the policemen who introduced themselves as my friends. They offered me a ride. I went unconscious after they dragged me into a car." In January 2013, a police commander in Uruzgan Province was accused of killing 121 local people. He fled to Ghazni Province and authorities said they will soon arrest the fugitive.
In early 2012, the Ministry of Interior provided 300 armoured vehicles to the 1st border police brigade stationed around the porous Durand Line, in Nangarhar province. Col. Mohammad Ayub Hussainkhel, the 3rd Border Police Brigade Commander, said "the border police are now capable of maintaining better security for the Durand Line and to prevent infiltration of militants into the province from Pakistan." In February 2012, the United States promised that it would support the government of Afghanistan to protect its sovereignty and effectively control its borders. At a 2012 meeting with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt in Chicago, US President Barack Obama said, "We are going to be consulting with not only Denmark but our other allies in making sure that is a smooth transition and one that is sustained, where we continue to help the Afghan government support its own sovereignty and effectively control its borders." In April 2013, the Ministry of Interior announced a strategy to strengthen and make the ANP professional with support from the international community. It is a ten-year plan designed to make the ANP become more closer to a Western standards police force.

General Directorate of Intelligence

Following the fall of Kabul in August 2021, the Taliban under the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan established the secret police and security surveillance agency known as the General Directorate of Intelligence.
The ANP has undergone a reorganization after the de facto reassertion of Taliban military control over Afghanistan.
The Afghan National Police under the Taliban have additionally reformed its special units subordinate to the General Command of Police Special Units, under the direct control of the Ministry of Interior Affairs. There are two known formations with one based in Herat, the 555th Operational Unit, with another being the 333rd Special Forces or “National Unit”.

Structure

The Afghan National Police is an organization that falls under the control and responsibility of the Afghan Ministry of Interior, along with the Counter-Narcotics Police of Afghanistan and the Counter Terrorism Department. The ANP is composed of the following sub-agencies:
  1. Afghan Uniform Police
  2. Public Security Police
  3. Afghan Highway Police
  4. Afghan Border Police
  5. Criminal Investigation Department
  6. Afghan Local Police Now part of ANP

    Uniform police

The Afghan Uniform Police is the primary civil law enforcement agency in Afghanistan. The ANP is divided into five regional commands. Other forces falling under the command and control of the ANP include local traffic police departments as well as the fire department.

Public Security Police

The Public Security Police was a gendarmerie responsible for civil order and counterinsurgency. The PSP was formed in March 2018 from part of the ANP Afghan National Civil Order Police with the majority of the ANCOP transferring to the Afghan National Army to form the Afghan National Civil Order Force.

Highway police

The Afghan Highway Police was a sub-department of the national police that is currently dissolved with only speculation of return. Their primary responsibility was to provide traffic safety and overall security of the "Ring Road" highway that connects most of the major population centers in Afghanistan. Most of the personnel, equipment and facilities that comprise the highway police were reorganized under the uniform police.