US MPs working with ANP in Kandahar City/Field reporting

David Zucchino of the LA Times again gives on-scene reporting, including on CF, that our major media seldom do (but see below):

U.S. puts hopes in bedraggled Afghan police
If the U.S. is to succeed in seizing control of Kandahar — the country's second-largest city — from the Taliban this summer, improving the performance of the police will be at the heart of the effort.

Reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan — Afghan national police checkpoint No. 4, substation 3, is a blighted shell of a building ringed by garbage and shaded by scruffy trees whose leaves are coated with fine gray dust. Here, nine police officers have the task of protecting the Shinghazi Baba neighborhood of southern Kandahar.

Sometimes they can't even protect themselves. Two months ago, an officer was fatally shot by an insurgent who escaped on a motorcycle.

"The force-protection posture is not really all that great," Sgt. 1st Class Arnaldo Colon, a U.S. Army military policeman, said as he arrived Wednesday morning for an inspection. He gestured toward dilapidated concrete barriers, a few sad strands of concertina wire and a yelping guard dog tied to a tree.

If the U.S. is to succeed in seizing control of Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, from the Taliban this summer, improving the performance of the Afghan police will be at the heart of that effort. The often bedraggled force patrols roads and operates neighborhood checkpoints, putting officers in daily contact with a civilian populace the U.S. is trying to win over.

Colon's unit, the 293rd Military Police Company [photos here and here--from the 97th Military Police Battalion, part of the CF's Task Force Kandahar (U.S. Army units), more here and here], trains and mentors Afghan police in Kandahar. The U.S. military is attempting to put an Afghan face on policing, pushing Afghans to take the lead on patrols, searches and neighborhood sweeps. The police and army will be responsible for security when U.S. forces begin to withdraw, perhaps as early as next summer.

When his company arrived in July as the only U.S. unit stationed in downtown Kandahar, Colon said, the police "didn't have a clue." They were incapable of patrolling on their own.

"Now, they're better prepared and know the minimum standards for patrol and security," Colon said as he led a foot patrol of seven U.S. MPs and six Afghan officers through busy streets filled with vendors hawking vegetables and shopkeepers selling sodas and snacks...

Canadian Army Sgt. Sarah Surtees, whose civil affairs [CIMIC, see below] patrol bumped into Colon's patrol at the checkpoint Wednesday [emphasis added], said the Afghan police have been instrumental in her mission. With their help, she said, she assesses community needs and encourages residents to seek help from the government-appointed district manager.

No projects are underway in the Shinghazi Baba neighborhood, Surtees said. But 300 residents of nearby neighborhoods have been hired to clean out clogged irrigation canals and culverts. Water carried by the system is needed by the small farm plots that dominate the area...

As for CF CIMIC work, more from Mr Zucchino:

Kandahar City: Matters involving the CF...

...that one reads about in the LA Times, not our major media...

American and Canadian civil affairs and development teams [emphasis added] had arranged the meeting to follow up on Saturday's joint U.S.-Afghan Operation Kokaran...

The discussion turned briefly to development. The elders complained that their neighborhood had received visits from U.S. and Canadian aid teams, but no projects.

Master Warrant Officer Kevin Walker, a Canadian civil affairs specialist [that's a CIMIC operator, all reservists, more here, here and here], explained that Kokaran had to be secured first. He had heard such complaints before; he's on his third tour in Afghanistan.

Walker, who has visited Mohammed at his home, told him that Saturday's operation, designed to cut Taliban infiltration routes and set up police checkpoints, would make it easier to visit and discuss development projects.

"The fact that he made the effort to get here shows he's serious and wants to engage with us," Walker said of Mohammed afterward...

Soon it was time to go. The American and Canadian soldiers strapped on their body armor and weapons and climbed back into their armored vehicles. Eight of the elders, dressed in flowing white salwar kameez and silver and black turbans, piled back into a battered Toyota Corolla station wagon. The other two left in a pickup truck...

But there is the occasional similar piece in our media--one example at this post, good on Mitch Potter of the Toronto Star:

Canadian police working with Afghans in Kandahar City/EU police Update

More from Mr Potter at this post:

Kandahar City: Another view

As for Kandahar City more generally:

Hot time in Kandahar City? And CF?

And, for a bit of newspaper balance, a post based on outside-the-wire reporting this March by the Globe and Mail's Josh Wingrove (such reporting not too common at that paper):

The face in the field on our Afghan mission...