69281
2006-06-25
06KABUL2862
Embassy Kabul
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 KABUL 002862
SIPDIS
SENSITIVE
SIPDIS
RELEASABLE TO NATO/AUST/NZ/ISAF

STATE FOR SCA/FO, SCA/A, S/CRS, SA/PAB, S/CT,
EUR/RPM, INL
STATE PASS TO USAID FOR AID/ANE, AID/DCHA/DG
NSC FOR AHARRIMAN
OSD FOR BREZINSKI
CENTCOM FOR CG CFC-A, CG CJTF-76, POLAD

E.O. 12958 N/A
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, SNAR, MARR, AF
SUBJECT: PRT/KUNDUZ: NEW POLICE CHIEFS RAISE HOPES
FOR FUNDAMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS IN NORTHEAST
KABUL 00002862 001.2 OF 005


1. (SBU) SUMMARY. The new police chiefs in Kunduz,
Baghlan and Takhar are well-educated, professional,
career police officers who have risen through the
ranks over the past 20 to 25 years, assiduously
avoiding direct participation in partisan politics
and earning a reputation for loyalty and integrity.
This stands in stark contrast to the former
mujahideen commanders they are replacing, who had no
formal police training or experience before being
appointed as police chiefs and who have abused their
positions of authority to engage in a broad range of
criminal activity. While there are great hopes for
these new chiefs, some question whether they will
have the power and local support necessary to be
effective. There is also a concern that given their
low salaries, the pervasive culture of corruption,
and pressure from local warlords, it may only be a
matter of time before they fall to the same
temptations as their predecessors. END SUMMARY.
WATERSHED APPOINTMENTS
------------------------------------------

2. (SBU) The new police chiefs in Kunduz, Baghlan
and Takhar, appointed earlier this month as part of
the ongoing pay and rank reform in the Afghan
National Police, could not be more different from
the old-guard, former mujahideen commanders they are
replacing. The new chiefs -- Sayed Ahmad Sameh in
Kunduz, Mohammad Ewaz in Baghlan and Mujtaba Patang
in Takhar -- are well-educated, professional, career
police officers, all of whom got their start during
the Soviet-backed Karmal regime of the early 1980s.
Sameh, Ewaz and Patang have slowly risen through the
ranks over the past 20 to 25 years, assiduously
avoiding direct participation in partisan politics
and earning a reputation for loyalty and integrity.
None of them fought in the jihad against the Soviets
or the Taliban, but chose instead to keep their
heads down and to work faithfully as police officers
under whatever government existed at the time.

3. (SBU) This, of course, stands in stark contrast
to the career path of their predecessors, Mutalib
Beg (mostly recently police chief in Kunduz and
before that, in Takhar) and Mir Alam (police chief
in Baghlan). Both were major mujahideen commanders
who had little higher education and no formal police
training or experience before being appointed as
police chiefs. Mir Alam had been commander of the
54th AMF Division in Kunduz, while Mutalib Beg was a
Takhar-based commander closely associated with his
Uzbek compatriot General Dostum. But even after
their appointments as police chiefs, both continued
to act as mujahideen commanders rather than
professional police officers, abusing their
positions of authority to engage in a broad range of
criminal activity, including extortion, bribery and
drug trafficking. Their removal from power
constitutes a major step forward in establishing
rule of law in the northeast.
OUT OF A JOB, BUT NOT OUT OF POWER
--------------------------------------------- -------

KABUL 00002862 002.2 OF 005

-----

4. (SBU) One potential problem, however, is that
while they are no longer police chiefs, they both
still exercise significant power and influence in
the region, and could frustrate the efforts of their
successors to establish law and order. Alam, who
has serious health problems, has moved back to
Kunduz with no apparent immediate plans for the
future. Already a wealthy man, Alam may ultimately
choose to retire rather seeking another government
position. On the other hand, Beg, who was escorted
to his native Taloqan by a 100-car convoy after his
June 6 replacement as police chief, clearly has
ambitions for higher office. He claims he was
already offered the governorship of Faryab province,
but rejected it because it was too far away and he
was not sure he would have the necessary public
support there. He is clearly aiming for a
governorship much closer to home. Of course, it
would completely undermine the positive effect of
having new, professional police chiefs in Kunduz and
Takhar if Beg got his wish and was appointed to be
governor of one of these two provinces.

5. (U) The following biographic information comes
from extensive meetings that PRToff has had with the
three police chiefs over the past two weeks.

MOHAMMED EWAZ: NEW CHIEF IN BAGHLAN
--------------------------------------------- -------
-------------

6. (SBU) Mohammed Ewaz, 51, has spent the last two
years serving as the commander of the Northeast
Police Regional Training Center (RTC) in Kunduz.
His American mentors at the RTC give him rave
reviews for his leadership skills and integrity.
Ewaz, an ethnic Tajik, was born and spent his
formative years in Badakhshan, but attended high
school in Kabul. He went on to study Afghan culture
at Kabul University, eventually graduating with a
diploma. He then worked as a high school teacher in
Kabul for two years before deciding to pursue a
career in law enforcement. He attended the police
academy in Kabul for one year and was then assigned
to Takhar police force, where he served in a variety
of positions over a 20-year period, including
battalion commander in Khwaja Ghar District along
the border with Tajikistan; head of the information
and culture section; chief of police in Rustaq
District; chief of provincial police operations;
chief of the political section; manager of
personnel; and head of administration. His final
position in the Takhar police department before
moving to the Kunduz RTC was head of the criminal
investigation section.

7. (SBU) Ewaz has had to endure a couple of short
disruptions to his career as a police officer.
When Najibullah was overthrown in 1992 and the
mujahideen took over, Ewaz was jobless for a year
until he could win the trust of the new government
and get back into the Takhar police department.
KABUL 00002862 003.2 OF 005


Similarly, Ewaz found himself out of work when the
Taliban briefly took control of Taloqan from the
mujahideen in the late 1990's. When asked whether
he had ever taken up arms against the Soviets or the
Taliban, Ewaz protested that he could never have
been a jihadist because he was an educated man.

8. (SBU) Ewaz had only been in his job for a week
when he met PRToff, but already by that time, he had
begun to end some of the more notorious corrupt
practices of the Baghlan police. Ewaz noted, for
example, that he had order police to stop collecting
bribes at the three entrances into Puli Khumri. He
admitted that this action had not been popular with
police soldiers, who had been receiving a cut of the
proceeds to augment their paltry salaries, but said
it was necessary to win the trust and confidence of
the local population.

SAYED AHMAD SAMEH: NEW CHIEF IN KUNDUZ
--------------------------------------------- -------
-----------------

9. (SBU) Sayed Ahmad Sameh, 50, was born and raised
in Samangan province. He studied electrical
engineering at Kabul Polytechnic University for two
years in the early 1980's, but had to give up his
studies early and return to Samangan in order to
work to support his family. He spent three years as
teacher and clerk before first becoming a police
soldier and then a year later, a police officer in
Samangan. He worked in a variety of positions in
the Samangan police department over the next 10
years, eventually rising to chief of police.

10. (SBU) Sameh, an ethnic Uzbek, spent the Taliban
period in Uzbekistan, but returned in late 2001 when
the Northern Alliance liberated Samangan, and at the
request of the provincial elders, re-assumed his
position as chief of police. He was transferred to
Sar-e-Pol in 2003, but he only stayed there only six
months before returning to be the chief of police in
Samangan. Sameh blamed his short tenure in Sar-e-
Pol on the difficult security environment engendered
by the lack of progress on Demobilization,
Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR) of former
military members. Sameh was replaced as chief of
police in Samangan in 2004 while he was in India
receiving medical treatment for a heart ailment. He
was essentially jobless from then until his
appointment as the new chief of police for Kunduz.
Sameh was not a jihadist, and while he knows General
Dostum (and vice versa), he claims that the two are
not political associates.

11. (SBU) Like Ewaz, Sameh has already moved to cut
down on police corruption in the Kunduz police
department, especially regarding the issuance of
passports. Until now, a passport could take months
to obtain unless one paid a $200 bribe. Sameh said
he would like to fire some clearly unqualified and
corrupt police officers, but has been told by MOI
not to bother replacing anyone until after the next
round of pay and rank reform is announced, which

KABUL 00002862 004.2 OF 005

should automatically remove many of these people.
MUJTABA PATANG: NEW CHIEF IN TAKHAR
--------------------------------------------- -------
----------

12. (SBU) Mujtaba Patang, 42, calls Logar home, but
he was born and raised in Kabul, where his father
worked as civil servant in the Ministry of Commerce.
Patang, an ethnic Pashtun, got an early start on his
law enforcement career, graduating from the police
academy in Kabul when he was only 18 (the youngest
in his year group). He worked several years in
Mazar-e-Sharif, eventually rising to become a police
battalion commander, before he was assigned to Kabul
and the Ministry of Interior (MOI), where he has
spent the bulk of his career. His assignments at
MOI have included stints as commander of a 1,200-man
police brigade and head of police training. Most
recently, he was the director of liaison relations
with Coalition and ISAF PRTs, responsible for
supervising embedded MOI reps throughout the
country. He was also a part-time professor at the
police academy in Kabul, teaching two or three hours
per day.

13. (SBU) After the fall of Najibullah and the
takeover by the mujahideen, Patang had to accept a
lower rank than before, but he was able to continue
working as a police officer. However, during three
years of the Taliban period, he did not have a
position. Like Ewaz and Sameh, he never fought as a
jihadist.

14. (SBU) In his first 10 days in office as police
chief in Takhar, Patang has replaced key officers in
the criminal investigation section, which is the
most prone to bribery, and has asked local
dignitaries from around the province to report to
him any district police chiefs who are corrupt
and/or engaged in illegal activities. He has moved
to improve service to the public by extending the
opening hours of the police HQ (before it was open
only in the mornings) and by carrying out night
police patrols throughout Taloqan and the
surrounding area. He has set up complaint boxes
around the city and says that he will open the boxes
and read the complaints himself.
FLAWED POLICE REFORM
--------------------

15. (SBU) While all three police chiefs see their
own appointments as evidence that police reform is
progressing (I did not pay anyone to get this
position, Ewaz said proudly), they are nonetheless
critical of the list of 86 police generals approved
by Karzai. Sameh estimated that about 35 percent
of the officers on the list did not deserve their
appointments. Patang agreed that the number of
unqualified officers on the list was far higher than
the 13 highlighted by some in the international
community. An ethnic Pashtun, Patang complained
that he had scored high enough on his police exam to
KABUL 00002862 005.2 OF 005


be a three-star general, but had been bumped down to
a one-star position because of a perceived need to
maintain ethnic balance and to keep certain former
mujahideen commanders in place, notwithstanding
their lack of qualifications. He said that the
general officer selections should have been based
solely on merit, without any consideration of
ethnicity. (Embassy comment: Although the
Selection Board process for senior police officers
has in fact been transparent and merit-based (with
the exception of the 13 mentioned above), Ewaz's
skepticism reflects a broad public distrust of the
central government's announced plans for civil
service reform. It also plays into an abiding
suspicion of ethnic bias, something that is deeply
felt by members of all major ethnic communities.
End embassy comment.)

16. (SBU) Patang was clearly disappointed to have
landed the Takhar job, which he viewed as a demotion
after his last position in the MOI, where he
supervised 16 other general officers. He was hoping
to be assigned as the chief of the border guards (a
three-star position), the chief of the education
section at MOI (a two-star position) or as the chief
of police in Mazar-e-Sharif (a province he already
knows well from his early career). The day before
the official announcement, Patang said he was told
he would be the chief of police in Kunduz, but for
some still-mysterious reason, his assignment was
changed overnight to Takhar.
COMMENT: CAUTIOUS HOPES
-----------------------

17. (SBU) There are great hopes that these three
new chiefs of police, who are bringing a wealth of
education and experience to their positions, will
prove far more competent and less corrupt than the
old guard they are replacing. But the question
remains whether these new chiefs, who are unfamiliar
with the provinces to which they have been assigned,
will have the power and local support necessary to
be effective. There is also a concern that given
their low salaries, the pervasive culture of
corruption, and pressure from local warlords, it may
only be a matter of time before they fall to the
same temptations as their predecessors. The
international community needs to actively support
them so that they can be a force for fundamental
change in their respective provinces.

NEUMANN