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OO RUEHDBU RUEHPW RUEHSL
DE RUEHBUL #0628/01 0491657
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 181657Z FEB 10
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5708
INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KABUL 000628 

SIPDIS 

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/04/2020 
TAGS: SNAR PGOV PREL PINS PK RU AF
SUBJECT: MINISTER OF INTERIOR REVIEWS POLICE TRAINING, CN POLICING 
AND REGIONAL RELATIONS WITH DRUG CZAR 

Classified By: CDDEA Ambassador E. Anthony Wayne reasons 1.4 b & d. 

REF: 10 KABUL 575 

¶1. (C) Summary: In a February 2 meeting, Director of the White House 
Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) R. Gil Kerlikowske 
joined by Ambassador Wayne, discussed a range of current issues with 
Afghan Minister of Interior Hanif Atmar. Atmar expressed 
satisfaction with the steady development of the Major Crimes Task 
Force (MCTF), especially on corruption, but hoped to see more 
progress on kidnapping, an area where the GIRoA needed better 
intelligence. Atmar hoped to begin sending 12-15,000 Afghan National 
Police (ANP) to train outside of Afghanistan each year, and to 
receive NATO funding and support to use a training facility 
constructed in Jordan for training Iraqi police for Afghan police 
officers. Atmar commended DEA's success in developing elite, vetted 
units of the Counternarcotics Police of Afghanistan (CNPA), supported 
expansion of the CNPA eradication force despite the termination of 
the U.S.-funded Poppy Eradication Force; and welcomed greater U.S. 
and coalition support to develop CNPA investigative capacity at the 
provincial level. Atmar was supportive of existing limited training 
exchanges with Russia, noting that other regional relationships would 
be more effective if pursued through a subject-specific task force 
structure, and requested U.S. support in pursuing such an approach 
with Pakistan (which Kerlikowske agreed to convey to FBI Director 
Mueller). He also commented on recent raids against hawalas 
(reftel). End Summary. 

MAJOR CRIMES TASK FORCE 
------------------------ 

¶2. (C) Minister Atmar expressed satisfaction with progress on the 
Major Crimes Task Force (MCTF), observing that it was slowly emerging 
as a key law enforcement institution in Afghanistan and that he was 
working with the FBI as well as the UK Serious Organised Crime Agency 
(SOCA) to accelerate progress. While good progress had been made on 
the MCTF Corruption and Kidnapping Units, not as much progress had 
been made on specific kidnapping cases, which require better 
intelligence assets than the Afghan government currently possesses. 

POLICE: LOOKING FOR TRAINING ABROAD, INCLUDING IN JORDAN 
------- --------------------------------------------- --- 

¶3. (C) Turning to the Afghan National Police (ANP), Atmar sought help 
from international partners to train a new generation of police 
leaders (and noted he planned to raise this issue with FBI Director 
Mueller during his upcoming visit in late February). Since the 
maximum annual training capacity in Afghanistan was about 30,000 
trainees, and there was a need to train 50,000 per year to meet 
expansion targets and offset attrition, Atmar expressed that hope 
that U.S. and European officials could train 12-15,000 officers per 
year outside of Afghanistan. As the U.S. had constructed a big 
facility for police training in Jordan, which he had heard was 
under-utilized, he thought it would make a good site for ANP training 
and especially for officer candidate training. The opportunity to 
study abroad would boost the appeal for ANP recruits, while training 
in safer Jordan would make it easier for the Europeans to provide 
trainers. EUPOL, he noted, had missed its trainer targets for the 
past two years due to the reluctance of European police trainers to 
come to Afghanistan. 

¶4. (C) Noting that he had sought Ambassador Holbrooke's help in 
lining up the Jordan facility, Atmar expressed hope that the ANP 
would hope to obtain rights to use the facility free of charge, with 
international donors providing meals and incidental expenses to the 
Afghan trainees with NATO transporting the trainees. The Minister 
said he planned to raise this proposal at the NATO Summit in 
Istanbul. He said he also hoped the UAE might contribute to paying 
expenses. 

DEVELOPING THE COUNTERNARCOTICS POLICE 
-------------------------------------- 

¶5. (C) Minister Atmar expressed his commitment to strengthening the 
Counter-narcotics Police of Afghanistan (CNPA), especially in the 
area of intelligence, adding that he had recently authorized its 
expansion. He said the CNPA Counter-narcotics Training Academy was 
one of our best training facilities. Atmar characterized the CNPA 
as having three tiers: the top end, where vetted units developed by 
DEA (our most trustworthy partner) and SOCA were doing a great job; 
the eradication force, which Atmar said planned to expand despite the 
termination of the U.S. Poppy Eradication Force (PEF) program (We 
need to keep that force to demonstrate that we are serious); and the 
CNPA officers on the ground, responsible for investigating narcotics 
cases, which faced the greatest challenges, especially in the area of 
intelligence. Ambassador Wayne noted that DEA and INL were working 
with DoD's Combined Security Transition Command - Afghanistan 
(CSTC-A)on how to build capacity within the CNPA, including: using 
some of the personnel from the former PEF, working with the vetted 
National Interdiction Unit (NIU), and providing more training. Atmar 
welcomed this, commenting that his goal was to obtain enough 
resources to establish a functioning CNPA presence in all of 

KABUL 00000628 002 OF 002 


Afghanistan's 365 districts. To that end, he had already allocated 
several hundred more tashkiel (approved personnel register) slots to 
the CNPA, adding that 95 percent of CNPA positions were filled. 
Noting that the drug mafia needs to know the police are after them, 
he observed that while production was concentrated in the South, 
trafficking continued to be a problem even in the North that had 
largely beat back poppy cultivation. 

REGIONAL RELATIONS - MOVING TO A TASK FORCE BASED APPROACH 
------------------ ------------------------------------- 

¶6. (C) Noting that his next stop would be Moscow, Director 
Kerlikowske asked if there were any areas of cooperation he might 
suggest to the Russians. Atmar responded that Russia had offered to 
provide training, and while there was initially some Afghan 
resistance, he was prepared to expand that, although I don't want to 
send everyone to Moscow. He said it is essential to maintain a 
relationship with Russian law enforcement to foster regional 
cooperation on narcotics and weapons trafficking, particularly with 
the Central Asian republics. Regional cooperation has been 
unsuccessful over the last eight years because of the inadequacy of 
institutional arrangements, not because of the lack of political 
will. He expressed the desire to form working level joint task 
forces with Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, to look 
at issues like trade/smuggling, weapons and narcotics. 

¶7. (C) Minister Atmar also commented on the difficulty of working 
with the Iranians and Pakistanis. Iran's support for insurgents has 
made cooperation difficult, and Atmar had encountered resistance from 
the Afghan Border Police to working with their Iranian counterparts 
because they resent Iran's support for insurgents. With Pakistan, 
Atmar had had limited success in establishing a joint task force, as 
agreed with FBI Director Mueller and GOP Minister Malik. The key to 
progress on these issues would be to move them from normal diplomatic 
channels to police-centered task forces, away from the bureaucracy, 
he argued. Atmar said he would appreciate U.S. assistance in 
establishing such an approach; Kerlikowske pledged to discuss this 
with Director Mueller in Washington. 

¶8. (C) Director Kerlikowske asked whether Interpol had a role to play 
in addressing these issues. Atmar responded that it should, for 
example, on drugs, money-laundering, threat finance, and 
counter-terrorism. DEA had told him that people were smuggling 
thirty million dollars a week through Kabul Airport, so Interpol had 
a key role in determining where that money was going (with Afghan law 
enforcement entities responsible for identifying where it came from). 
Another useful role for Interpol would be to arrange the deportation 
of criminals with outstanding arrest warrants who were working 
against Afghanistan in Quetta and Karachi, he stated. 

¶9. (C) Atmar and Wayne also discussed recent threat finance 
enforcement actions, and next steps (septel). 

¶10. (SBU) This message has been cleared by ONDCP Director Kerlikowske. 


EIKENBERRY