Trigger-Happy Security Complicates Convoys, Army Times, 2 December 2009
EXCERPT: "Ill-disciplined private security guards escorting supply convoys to coalition bases are wreaking havoc as they pass through western Kandahar province, undermining the coalition's counterinsurgency strategy here and leading to at least one confrontation with U.S. forces, say U.S. Army officers and Afghan government officials. The security guards are responsible for killing and wounding more than 30 innocent civilians during the past four years in Maywand district alone, said Mohammad Zareef, the senior representative in the district for Afghanistan's intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security. Highway 1, the country's main east-west artery, runs through Maywand and is the route taken by logistics convoys moving west from Kabul and Kandahar to coalition bases in Helmand province. The Afghan government’s district chief for Maywand says the men hired to protect the convoys are heroin addicts armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles. The contractors' actions are frustrating U.S. military leaders in Maywand and undermining coalition efforts to bring a greater sense of security to the Afghan people, particularly because the locals associate the contractors with the coalition."
Read the full story.
Related articles:
Danny Fitzsimons hired by security firms despite "worrying" psychiatric reports, Times Online, 4 December 2009
US adding contractors at fast pace, The Wall Street Journal, 2 December 2009
DynCorp sees growth in Afghanistan business, Reuters, 2 December 2009
Addicted to contractors, Foreign Policy, 1 December 2009
Related posts:
Counting contractors, managing the drawdown, 4 November 2009
Challenges in tracking contractor personnel and contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, 8 October 2009
The public cost of private security, 18 September 2009
Contractors outnumber US troops in Afghanistan, 2 September 2009
US panel finds lax oversight of wartime contracting, 8 June 2009
