Karzai to discuss village force issue with Petraeus

WASHINGTON - With American commanders pushing to expand the number of armed village forces in areas where their troops and the local police are scarce, the Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai has signaled that he has serious concerns about the program that could return the country to warlordism, challenging the power of the central government.

According to the New York Times, the issue of village forces has been subject of discussion in frenetic daily meetings for the past week between Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American military commander in Afghanistan, and Karzai.

The duo is scheduled to meet again on Tuesday, according to senior NATO military officials here.

It is expected that they will discuss a modified version of the plan to assuage Karzai’s doubts by agreeing to his request that the Afghan government should be involved at every stage of the program.

Officials close to both the Afghans and the Americans sounded cautiously optimistic about an agreement being reached in the next few days.

The village defense forces, which General Petraeus and his predecessor, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, wanted to expand, and the new version that is now under discussion, were first set up in a test form by Special Operations forces in a handful of communities. They were intended to act as local protection in areas where there were neither Afghan police officers nor army units nor many American forces. (ANI)