Posted on 04/01/2002 4:54:56 AM PST by kattracks
KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) - International peackeepers on Monday launched one of the biggest police operations of their stay in Kabul against suspected unpaid Northern Alliance soldiers preying on the people of the Afghan capital.
In a bid to stamp out a surge in armed robberies over the past week to 10 days, the multinational force had "swamped" suburbs where the soldiers-turned-criminals had struck repeatedly, said a spokesman for the 18-nation International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
ISAF soldiers have twice been caught in the crime wave with shots fired on two separate occasions since Friday at British and German patrols.
There were no soldiers injured in either attack.
"There is some suggestion they are Northern Alliance soldiers stationed on the outskirts of the town and that possibly the reason why they are coming in and doing these things is because they are not being paid," ISAF spokesman Flight Lieutenant Tony Marshall said.
"They are not being fed and they are not being clothed," he told a news conference.
The mainly ethnic Tajiks of the Northern Alliance, who have been in Kabul since mid-November, were in the vanguard of U.S.-led forces that freed the capital from the rule of the radical Islamic Taliban.
They are a disorganized force with no central authority, owing allegiance to local warlords who banded together for the attack on the Taliban, their long time enemies.
NO ROLE, NO MONEY
With a formal Afghan Army still in the making, the fighters find themselves far from their homes in northern Afghanistan near the border with former Soviet republics.
They have no real role or source of income.
As well as armed robberies, they have also been blamed for killing two people in Kabul last week in an attempt to abduct a young woman.
"There is going to be a major push for the next week or so. We are throwing a lot of extra resources in there, a lot of extra patrols," Marshall said.
"ISAF is determined that we will shut off, cut off this particular upsurge in violent crime."
"We are mounting patrols specifically to try to catch, or at least intercept, these armed individuals coming into the area," Marshall said.
He said ISAF was so concerned that it was not just relying on efforts of British troops, but was calling on all the resources of the 18 nations involved in the 5,000-strong ISAF which has been in Kabul since the start of the year.
"People in the area are very much in fear of their lives," Marshall said.
The area in west Kabul bordering scrubland on the outskirts is populated by very poor people.
"This is out and out robbery without any ethnic base," Marshall said.
He said residents had appealed for help, describing attacks in which their doors were kicked down in the dead of night and they were robbed of all they owned.
Marshall said the ISAF crackdown had the full support of interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai's administration.
Copyright 2002 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved.
I would guess there are many unpaid and underpaid folks in Kabul even without Northern Alliance. Scared of quick and bloody Taliban court, they keeped low profile. But when one tries to implement Democracy in country without stable (at least SOME!) economy - the unruly mob comes out.
My forecast on this is very, very pessimistic...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.