In Afghan police training, US aims to curb corruption

US Army Captain Dave Panian (left) negotiated with the police chief (right) of Farah, Afghanistan, using an interpreter. (Rick Loomis/Los Angeles Times)

FARAH, Afghanistan - There were two good reasons why Captain Dave Panian made a perilous journey across the desert to this dusty provincial capital.

He wanted to check on his close friend, a district police chief whose family had been threatened by the Taliban. He also wanted to pry loose salaries for the chief's police officers, who were owed two months' pay.

Panian, a lanky officer from San Diego, heads a small US Army team training local police near the village of Bala Buluk, 40 miles northeast of Farah in southwest Afghanistan, where his friend Haji Khudaydad is the chief. Training is the easy part. The hard part is cutting through threats, bureaucracy, cronyism, and corruption.

The effectiveness of police and other local officials is taking on growing importance as the Taliban move to regain territory in southern Afghanistan this summer. Afghan and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops battled the Taliban last week for control of villages around the city of Kandahar, about 220 miles east of Farah.

Throughout the country, police often have been little more than hired guns who raise money for local warlords through illegal taxes, shakedowns, and corruption. Many police and district officials sell weapons and opium. Some collude with the Taliban. Since 2003, trainers such as Panian from the US military and its foreign partners have been working to reform the police.

Some units have fought effectively alongside US forces, but others remain mired in cronyism and Mafia-like criminal enterprises. With fighting picking up in southern Afghanistan, the role of police chiefs such as Khudaydad and the loyalty of their officers are crucial.

So Panian got into a shouting match with provincial officials who refused to release last month's pay for the police. He ended up storming over to the local bank and coming out with a plastic bag stuffed with the equivalent of $14,000 in afghanis, the local currency. But first he warned the officials that there would be "hell to pay" if they didn't cough up this month's pay the next day.

Then Panian found out that even though the Taliban had placed a $30,000 bounty on Khudaydad, officials had refused to help him move his wives and children outside the provincial capital, to where relatives and fellow tribesmen could protect them.

After a harrowing seven-hour drive across the desert at night in a convoy of police, US soldiers, and Marines, Khudaydad was delivered back to his Bala Buluk compound. He was relieved to be out of Farah.

"I don't trust those people," Khudaydad said of certain provincial officials.

In Bala Buluk, Panian's 14 trainers live in a spartan compound next to district police headquarters. They have run about 100 police officers through an eight-week police academy in Herat, about 140 miles to the north, and mentored Khudaydad's officers daily for six months.

"I won't deny there's still corruption, but it's at a much lower level," Panian said.

Panian and his trainers forced out two previous chiefs. One extorted cash from local shopkeepers and imposed taxes on passing vehicles. The other ran drugs and guns, according to US team members.

The trainers maneuvered Khudaydad into the chief's job, even though he is a sergeant major, not an officer. They consider him tough, fair, and honest.

"He's not blameless, but he's as good as they come based on what we've seen here," Panian said.

Khudaydad, who appears to be in his mid-40s, has a long face, a wispy, black beard, and expressive brown eyes. He seems to command respect from his men, who listen closely when he speaks.

He fought the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, and in 2001 turned against the Taliban, which he said has killed 38 of his family members and fellow tribesmen, including four nephews and two sons.

Twelve of Khudaydad's officers have died since he took over as chief April 2. Some were killed in a vehicle accident, but others died in fighting against the Taliban in late May, in which a US trainer also was killed.

The Taliban control much of the countryside in Farah Province, where their fighters plant roadside bombs and mount occasional ambushes. A roadside bomb killed four Marines earlier this month.

"I waited a long time for the Americans to come," Khudaydad said, referring to training, weapons, and equipment US forces have provided.