Afghan National Army - History

History

The modern army has its roots to the Hotaki dynasty which was formed in April 1709, before the establishment of the Afghan Empire by Ahmad Shah Durrani. In 1880 Amir Abdur Rahman Khan established a newly equipped Afghan Army with help from the British. The Afghan Army was more modernized by King Amanullah Khan in the early 20th century just before the Third Anglo-Afghan War. King Amanullah and his Afghan Army fought against the British in 1919, resulting in Afghanistan becoming fully independent after the Treaty of Rawalpindi was signed. The Afghan Army was further upgraded during King Zahir Shah's reign, starting in 1933.

From the 1960s to the early 1990s, the Afghan Army received training and equipment mostly from the former Soviet Union. Before the 1978 Marxist revolution, according to military analyst George Jacobs, the armed forces included "some three armored divisions (570 medium tanks plus T 55s on order), eight infantry divisions (averaging 4,500 to 8,000 men each), two mountain infantry brigades, one artillery brigade, a guards regiment (for palace protection), three artillery regiments, two commando regiments, and a parachute battalion (largely grounded). All the formations were under the control of three corps level headquarters. All but three infantry divisions were facing Pakistan along a line from Bagram south to Khandahar." After the coup, desertions swept the force, affecting the loyalty and moral values of soldiers, there were purges on patriotic junior and senior officers, and upper class Afghan aristocrats in society.

Gradually the army's three armoured divisions (4th and 15th at Kabul/Bagram and 7th at Khandahar) and now sixteen infantry divisions dropped in size to between battalion and regiment sized, with no formation stronger than about 5,000 troops. During the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan, the national army of Afghanistan was involved in fighting against the mujahideen rebel groups. A big problem in the Afghan army became deserters or defectors. The Afghan army's casualties were as high as 50–60,000 and another 50,000 deserted the armed forces. The Afghan army's defection rate was about 10,000 per year between 1980–89, the average deserters left the Afghan army after the first five months.

By 1992, after the withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Afghanistan and the fall of the communist regime in Kabul, the Soviet-trained army splintered between the government in Kabul and the various warring factions. By mid 1994 for example, there were two parallel 6th Corps operating in the north. Abdul Rashid Dostam's 6th Corps was based at Pul-i-Khumri and had three divisions. The Defence Ministry of the Kabul government's 6th Corps was based at Kunduz and also had three divisions, two sharing numbers with formations in Dostum's corps. During that time local militia forces were formed or the former Soviet era national army units 'regionalised;' both provided security for their own people living in the territories they controlled. The country was factionalized with different warlords controlling the territories they claimed, and there was no officially recognized national army in the country.

The Afghan Army 1978

• Central Corps (Kabul)
  • 7th Division (Kabul)
  • 8th Division (Kabul)
  • 4th and 15th Armoured Brigades
  • Republican Guard Brigade
• 2nd Corps (Kandahar)
• 3rd Corps (Gardez)
• 9th Division (Chugha-Serai)
• 11th Division (Jalalabad)
• 12th Division (Gardez)
• 14th Division (Ghazni)
• 15th Division (Kandahar)
• 17th Division (Herat)
• 18th Division (Mazar-i-Sharif)
• 20th Division (Nahrin)
• 25th Division (Khost)

This era was followed by the Taliban regime in 1996, which removed the warlords and decided to control the country by Islamic Sharia law. The Taliban also began training its own army troops and commanders, some of whom were secretly trained by the intelligence agency (ISI) or Pakistani Armed Forces around the Durand Line. After the removal of the Taliban government in late 2001, private armies loyal to former warlords took over security around the country. Formations in existence by the end of 2002 included the 1st Army Corps (Nangarhar), 2nd Army Corps (Kandahar, dominated by Gul Agha Sherzai), 3rd Army Corps (Paktia, where the US allegedly attempted to impose Atiquallah Ludin as commander), 4th Army Corps (Herat, dominated by Ismail Khan), 6th Army Corps at Kunduz, 7th Army Corps (under Atta Muhammad Nur at Balkh), 8th Army Corps (at Jowzjan, dominated by Dostum's National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan) and the Central Army Corps around Kabul.

The new Afghan National Army was founded with the issue of a decree by President Hamid Karzai on December 1, 2002. Upon his election Karzai set a goal of an army of at least 70,000 men by 2009. However, many western military experts as well as the Afghan Defense Minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, believed that the nation needed at least 200,000 active troops in order to defend it from enemy forces.

The first new Afghan battalion was trained by British army personnel of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), becoming 1st Battalion, Afghan National Guard. Yet while the British troops provided high quality training, they were few in number. After some consideration, it was decided that United States Army special might be able to provide the training. Thus follow-on battalions were recruited and trained by 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group of Ft. Bragg, NC, under the command of LTC McDonnell. 3rd SFG built the training facilities and ranges for early use, using a Soviet built facility on the eastern side of Kabul, near the then ISAF headquarters. The first training commenced in May 2002, with a difficult but successful recruitment process of bringing hundreds of new recruits in from all parts of Afghanistan. Early training was done in Pashto and Persian and some Arabic due to the very diverse ethnicities.

By January 2003 just over 1,700 soldiers in five Kandaks (Pashto for battalions) had completed the 10-week training course, and by mid 2003 a total of 4,000 troops had been trained. Approximately 1,000 ANA soldiers were deployed in the US-led Operation Warrior Sweep, marking the first major combat operation for Afghan troops. Initial recruiting problems lay in the lack of cooperation from regional warlords and inconsistent international support. The problem of desertion dogged the force in its early days: in the summer of 2003, the desertion rate was estimated to be 10% and in mid-March 2004, estimate suggested that 3,000 soldiers had deserted. Some recruits were under 18 years of age and many could not read or write. Recruits who only spoke the Pashto language experienced difficulty because instruction was usually given through interpreters who spoke Dari.

In March 2004, fighting erupted in the western city of Herat between Ismail Khan's private army and the Defense Ministry's 4th Corps militia. Ismail Khan's son Mirwais Sadiq was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade during the military standoff between his father and the Defense Ministry's Herat Division commander, General Abdul Zaher Nayebzadah. The death toll from the fighting was estimated at 50 to 100 people. In response to the fighting, about 1,500 Afghan National Army troops were deployed to Herat. The ANA were sent to the garrison of the 17th Herat Division of the Defense Ministry's 4th Corps – General Abdul Zaher Nayebzadah's headquarters. The 17th Division headquarters had been overrun by Ismail Khan's private militia on 21 March.

Soldiers in the new army initially received $30 a month during training and $50 a month upon graduation, though the basic pay for trained soldiers has since risen to $165. This starting salary increases to $230 a month in an area with moderate security issues and to $240 in those provinces where there is heavy fighting. About 95% of the men and women serving in the military are paid by electronic funds transfer. Special biometrics are used during the registration of each soldier.