US/NATO allied with warlords and militias in Afghanistan

Gareth Porter summarizes some of the cases where US and NATO forces in Afghanistan pay millions of dollars to warlords and illegal militias to provide security for their troops and bases. He suggests that the U.S. and NATO contingents are spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually on contracts with Afghan security providers, most of which are local power brokers guilty of human rights abuses.

Two anonymous United Nations sources cited in the report [by Jake Sherman et al.] estimate that 1,000 to 1,500 unregistered armed security groups have been "employed, trained, and armed by ISAF" and "Coalition Forces" for security services. As many as 120,000 armed individuals are estimated by the U.N. sources to belong to about 5,000 private militias in Afghanistan.