Fighting a criminal insurgency in Afghanistan's seat of government

NY Times:

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Under a new interior minister, Amrullah Saleh, and an earlier influx of new security commanders, including General Roshandil, the authorities have begun a concerted effort to restore order in Kabul and to reinforce police forces that have been crushed by record casualties and weakened by a reputation for corruption, abuse and acting as the extended arm of warlords as well as the elite.

Last fall, police and intelligence forces began a major push against Islamic State and Taliban cells in and around Kabul. It was a campaign that has been credited by American and Afghan officials with reducing the number of attacks, though insurgents still manage to sneak in large amounts of explosives for truck bombs and daring raids.

Now, the police forces are focused on dismantling what they call a “pyramid of crime” in the capital.

Officials say they have identified about 1,500 people in the city who are suspected of criminal activity, and who are thought to own a total of nearly 30,000 illegal arms. And they have begun dismantling the pyramid from the bottom, making their way toward the powerful few at the top.

“This pyramid of crime that exists, we are hitting its base so those at the top crumble with it,” General Roshandil said. “The people no longer have patience for this.”

A new nationwide order bans anyone but military, interior or intelligence officials from being trailed on the roads by pickup trucks full of highly visible armed guards, as powerful people in the capital and beyond have long done.

The local police have said they will use whatever force is necessary to fight the crime syndicates, and that special forces are ready to assist. In the first days after the order took effect, police officers seized vehicles belonging to one of the country’s vice presidents as well as powerful members of Parliament — moves that would have been unthinkable until recently.

Such initiatives have created a rare sense of optimism in Kabul, leading some to hope that a police force many had given up on might somehow be reinvigorated and armed to stand up to the local mafia as much as to insurgents.
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There is more.

Afghanistan has suffered from lawlessness since before the Taliban.  Reimposing the rule of law may give it a chance to become a law-abiding society again.  It will require a change of culture.