Page 239 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

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aCta
mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) again extended their operations
towards the civil domain, in a population-focused attempt to support the international project
of state building in that utterly destroyed country. In September 2004, after a couple of years
of only carrying out security operations in the capital city of Kabul, the Netherlands de-
ployed a so-called Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) to the province of Baghlan, north
of Kabul. The Dutch armed forces assisted the Afghan central government here in increasing
regional stability and establishing new power structures from 2004 to 2006. Supporting the
civil administration and local security forces – with a focus on public safety, good govern-
ance and reconstruction - was at the heart of this mission. The PRT should be seen, so argued
the first commander, an airforce colonel, as a “forward operating base” of the still weak cen-
tral government.
2
Because the Dutch PRT operated in a relatively safe area, it was small (around 200 men
and women) and lightly armed. Most important elements were the so-called Military Obser-
vation and liaison teams. these teams carried out reconnaissance missions into the remot-
est corners of the mountainous province to chart political, administrative, tribal and cultural
relations and social needs. A start was made with the disarmament of militias, creating a
properly functioning police force and monitoring and guiding local government in a broad
spectrum of its public tasks. Assistance was rendered to support agricultural activities and to
provide electricity to homes and businesses on a local level. After 2006, these activities were
continued by a Hungarian PRT.
The Dutch operation within the ISAF framework in the province of Baghlan was popula-
tion-centred because the strategic goals of the mission itself required it to be. The PRT was
pre-eminently an instrument for winning peace, not war. Giving the Afghan people a better
future was a main operational effort, in order to ultimately deny global terrorists a safe haven
ever again. The mandate therefore was ambitious in the non-military domains (both practi-
cally and ideologically) and focused on nation-building and economical development, away
from the traditional combat role of the armed forces involved, not in the least because resist-
ance in this part of the country was relatively light. This was before the ISAF campaign
3
shifted its attention to the south and became a counterinsurgency operation.

the iraq experience
In Iraq, where a Dutch armed forces battle group of approximately 1200 personnel sup-
ported the American-British occupation authority and the new Iraqi regime respectively from
2003 to 2005, the military operation was again population-focused, but for different reasons.
This time, the mission in the southern Iraqi province of Al Muthanna was not humanitarian
or peace building in character. It was mainly a security and stabilisation operation in support
of the occupation in 2003-2004 and a security assistance operation to the new Iraqi govern-
ment and its security forces in 2004-2005, with certain characteristics that occasionally made
it a counter guerrilla operation in 2004, when the Shiite power struggle in the south turned

2 Arthur ten Cate, “Winning the peace. Dutch post conflict military operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan”,
in: andré Rakoto e.a. eds., Exiting war. Post conflict military operations (Bratislava en Château de Vincen-
nes 2007) 109-115.
3 Arthur ten Cate, “Winning the peace”.