Private Afghan security guards protecting NATO supply convoys in southern Kandahar province regularly fire wildly into villages they pass, U.S. and Afghan officials say.
The guards shoot into the villages to intimidate any potential fighters, the officials say, but also cause the kind of civilian casualties.
"Especially as they go through the populated areas, they tend to squeeze the trigger first and ask questions later," said Capt. Matt Quiggle, a member of the U.S. Army's 5th Stryker brigade tasked with patrolling Highway One, which connects Afghanistan's major cities.
"The government doesn't care about us," said Sher Mohammed, whose 25-year-old brother, Suleiman, was shot and killed in mid-March by gunmen protecting a NATO convoy as it traveled through the Maiwand district of Kandahar. "Strong people in Kandahar control the companies and they don't care about the poor people."
Mohammed said two other of his relatives had been wounded in similar incidents in the past eight months, one a 12-year-old boy. He and many others have traveled to Maiwand's district center, Hutal, to complain to the local governor, Obaidullah Bawari.
"This is a big problem not only in Maiwand but all over Kandahar," said Bawari. "They create problems for everyone by shooting at innocent people for no reason."
Public anger is directed at the Afghan government and coalition forces, said Lt. Col. Dave Abrahams, deputy commander of a Stryker battalion that patrols the stretch of Highway One where Suleiman was shot.
"The irresponsible actions of these companies are jeopardizing NATO's attempts to gain the support of local villagers", Abrahams wrote in an e-mail to his superiors late last year.
"They are armed, wearing uniforms, escorting U.S. convoys, and indiscriminately shooting into villages," said Abrahams.
But some private guards deny they act improperly.
"The NATO force trusts us," said Jalad Khan, who works for a private security company that helps move NATO supplies in Kandahar province, adding that NATO hires and trains them.
He insisted indiscriminate gunfire happened rarely — if ever. "Mostly we take action only after someone attacks us, or if NATO forces start firing," Khan said.
Local support in Kandahar is particularly critical as the U.S. plans to pour thousands of additional troops into the province in the coming months to wrestle it from the Taliban fighters.
Abrahams, the deputy battalion commander, tried to address the problem in November by stopping two convoys as they passed his base.
"We basically detained their entire security force, and I sat down to talk to their leaders to tell them not to shoot without reason and basically threatened" to take away their certification to work for NATO, said Abrahams. "But we haven't been able to make good on it, which is part of our frustration."
Many of the gunmen have little or no training and many are also high on either heroin or hashish, Afghan and U.S. officials said.
The gunmen who shot Suleiman at a gas station turned out to be Afghan police from neighboring Zhari district moonlighting as convoy security guards, said Abrahams. They were turned over to the Zhari police chief and "are back on the street," he said.
A recent report by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said it is common for police commanders in Kandahar to have their men work for private security companies to collect a second salary.
Although it is extremely rare for victims of private security company shootings to receive compensation, the Zhari district governor recently sent 100,000 Pakistani rupees ($1,150) to his counterpart in Maiwand for Suleiman's family. The payment came after significant U.S. pressure.
Local power brokers in Kandahar have worked to maintain this revenue stream by keeping the police force weak, forcing coalition forces to rely on private security companies for protection, the Institute of the Study of War report said.
PHOTO CAPTION
Sher Mohammed, left, waits outside the Maiwand district center with other Afghan men after holding a shura with the district leader, in Afghanistan's Kandahar province. Mohammed's 25-year-old brother was shot and killed in mid-March by a private Afghan security company escorting a NATO convoy.
Source: agencies