4 Threat Matrix: Taliban kill Afghan Local Police in attacks in west and north

Written by Bill Roggio on April 5, 2012 2:59 PM to 4 Threat Matrix

Available online at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2012/04/taliban_kill_afghan_local_poli.php

The Taliban's spring offensive now appears to be in full swing. Following yesterday's suicide attack in Faryab that killed 12 people, including three US soldiers, the Taliban targeted members of the Afghan Local Police in the western province of Farah and the northeastern province of Badakhshan. Al Jazeera reports on the attack in Farah:

The attack late on Wednesday was carried out at an outpost of the government-backed Afghan Local Police force in the Khaki Safed district of the western province.

Shamsul Rahman Zahid, the provincial police chief, said that two members of the ALP were captured by the gunmen, who were armed with assault rifles.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack.

A district administrator said the attackers first strangled a guard posted outside before proceeding to open fire on those inside the compound itself. The attackers made off with the ALP weapons following the attack, said Abdul Khaliq Noorzai.

The ALP commander at the checkpoint was reported to have been a former Taliban member who had joined the government-backed security force.

The BBC reports on the attack in Badakhshan, which killed an ALP commander and his bodyguard:

A prominent anti-Taliban commander in the Afghan province of Badakhshan has been killed in a suspected Taliban suicide attack, police say.

They say that Nazik Mir was killed in Kisham district. At least 16 civilians were injured.

Mr Mir was one of the biggest enemies of the Taliban in Badakhshan, stopping them from operating in the area.

The Afghan Local Police clearly are a prime target of the Taliban.

On March 30, a member of the Afghan Local Police who is reportedly a Taliban infiltrator killed nine of his colleagues as they slept. He poisoned them first, then gunned them down and stole their weapons. And on March 26, a member of the ALP gunned down an ISAF soldier at a checkpoint in the east.

CJ Radin reported last night about the effectiveness and the strengths and weaknesses of the Afghan Local Police and Village Stability Operations. Bill Ardolino followed up the report with a video on Village Stability Operations in Zhari district in Kandahar.