Backed by $142 million of international funding, the Afghan government effort was expected to attract 1,000 fighters in eight provinces by the end its first year, British Maj. Gen. Philip Jones told a briefing on Friday.
The scheme has so far drawn 2,436 fighters in 20 provinces. NATO estimates there are about ten times that number in the country, said Jones, who heads NATO support for the mission.
“Of course it’s clear the number of formal reintegrees is still relatively modest in comparison with the scale of ambition and the overwhelming majority of groups that have joined the process so far have been low-level, village-level fighters,” Jones told a reporters by video conference from Kabul.
“But today, a year into this process, we are seeing more significant groups beginning to flow in across the country and this is beginning to take place in the provinces in the south and the east, where reintegration is always going to be more of a challenge,” he said.
Jones said that in a country that had been at war for more than 30 years, skepticism and doubt remained widespread and numbers joining were far smaller than average in places like the volatile province of Kandahar.
“In Kandahar ... there are probably no more than 100 to 120 people who have joined the program,” he said.
“Local security remains one of the salient challenges of all of this, such that people can be free of retribution. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Taleban see people joining this program as a significant threat.”
Jones said some disenchantment with the process could be explained by the fact that some group leaders expected money for joining the scheme and then declared that promises had been broken when none materialized.
“The Afghans are very clear,” he said. “No perverse incentives, it has to be an earnest and sincere peace process.”
While highlighting the numbers, Jones said it was difficult to judge success simply by looking at data.
“A group of 15 in one particular province can be very insignificant and a group of 15 in another province can be very, very significant,” he said.
Despite efforts to encourage insurgents to give up their fight, violence in Afghanistan is at its most intense since the overthrow of the Taleban government in late 2001.
Foreign troops have started handing over security responsibility to Afghan forces to allow a full departure of NATO-led combat soldiers by the end of 2014.
Risks for the future were underscored when suicide squads showered Kabul’s embassy and NATO districts with rockets and gunfire in a 20-hour standoff this week.
