PRT/KUNDUZ: INTEL CHIEF TRYING HARD, LACKS CAPABLE

C O N F I D E N T I A L KABUL 005852

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SIPDIS

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/13/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR AF
SUBJECT: PRT/KUNDUZ: INTEL CHIEF TRYING HARD, LACKS CAPABLE
STAFF

Classified By: A/POL COUNSELOR MARTIN D. MURPHY FOR REASONS 1.4 (b) & (
d)


1. (C) SUMMARY: Baghlan National Directorate for Security
(NDS) Chief reports most of his employees and other GOA
appointees in the districts are unqualified and untrained,
have poor or no infrastructure, and cannot be removed by
provincial authorities because they are appointed from Kabul,
often on the basis of past "contributions" or connections to
powerful people. It will be difficult to improve governance
until the GOA trains and appoints capable people. END
SUMMARY.


2. (C) According to Baghlan National Directorate of Security
(NDS) Chief Mohammed Wali, many district NDS officials are
illiterate former jihadi commanders, who are in their current
position either because of connections, or because they have
been in their positions so long that it is not possible
either to train them or to get rid of them.


3. (C) Wali said that he lacks good job candidates who have
solid backgrounds and are trainable. He lamented that
whenever he wants to plan an operation, he has to give
detailed instructions to his people in the field on exactly
what to do, and even then, many of them cannot carry out the
most basic instructions. If they were trained professionals,
he stressed, they would know what to do. Due to poor roads
and transportation, Wali said he often has to hire
unqualified people who already live in the remote districts
because no one else is willing or able to work there. NDS
and other district officials often have no buildings to work
out of, and no communications systems, which is a serious
problem because their job is collecting and reporting
information. Wali noted that while most people in Baghlan
support the GOA, there would be no way to control the local
population were they to rise up against the government.


4. (C) COMMENT: Wali is a well-educated intelligence
professional who appears to be trying to do his job to the
best of his ability under very difficult circumstances. The
Hungarian PRT reports that he is a close collaborator with
whom they enjoy daily interaction and a high level of
cooperation. END COMMENT.


5. (C) Bio Notes: Mohammed Wali has been a professional
intelligence officer for nearly 25 years, with a break during
the Taliban period when he refused to join either the Taliban
or the Northern Alliance and left intelligence work to go
into private business in Mazar-e Sharif. He returned almost
immediately after the Taliban were overthrown, and has been
steadily working to re-energize an intelligence service that
had been greatly reduced and sidelined. He worked on
expanding the NDS into the provinces, then as head of a new
NDS branch in Kabul, and finally after an institutional
reorganization he served as deputy of Department 90, the
counter-terrorism branch, for about a year and a half. He
moved to Pul-e Khumri to take over as NDS Director for
Baghlan Province in mid-2005.
NEUMANN