Afghan soldiers misuse ammo to get scrap metal

Zahir Jan, a scrap metal dealer in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, pays about 175 Afghani ($2.55) per kilo of spent cartridge casings and has no trouble finding supplies from poorly paid soldiers and policemen looking for extra cash. If they don’t have enough on hand, he says they’re happy to fire off their weapons for 5-10 minutes until he has what he needs.

“This is a good business now and there are buyers waiting in different areas,” he said.

Along with official and media reports that some soldiers and police even sell weapons and ammunition to the Taliban, the issue illustrates a problem for commanders trying to improve controls on vital supplies like fuel and ammunition.

A senior Afghan officer in the army’s technical and weapons branch said troops in Helmand and the northern province of Kunduz fired 7,000 artillery shells in May alone.

“We asked army commanders about it and said if each shell killed only one person, we should have 3,500 Taliban dead in each province,” he said. ‘‘It’s very clear they fire aimlessly and col- lect the shell casings for copper and sell them.”

Another officer, a commander in Helmand who arrived in the province six months ago following a clearout of senior officers in the army’s 215th corps, estimated that up to 8 out of every 10 soldiers sold ammunition casings.

“One hundred per cent, it happens,” he said, also speaking anonymously as he was not authorized to talk to the media. ‘‘The reason is the lack of a proper logistics system as well as insufficient pay and leave.” Despite recent efforts to improve pay and conditions for Afghan soldiers, morale remains a problem, with many serving for months or even years without leave, earning around $200 a month. The clear out of senior officers in Helmand was prompted by reports of abuse and corruption, including cases where officers stole soldiers’ pay or demanded bribes to allow them to go on leave.

Assessing just how widespread aummunition misuse is and how far the sale of cases involves deliberately or wastefully firing off ammunition rather than collecting spent cartridges from normal operations remains difficult.

The defence ministry declined to provide ammunition usage figures.

But at least seven officials in different parts of the government and military said soldiers discharging their weapons purely in order to produce saleable scrap metal was a problem.

The United States spent more than $300 million from its Afghanistan Security Forces Fund on ammunition for Afghan army and police last year, Department of Defence figures show.

In a report from February, Pentagon inspectors said the systems for supplying and maintaining equipment for police and army units were “immature and unreliable”.

Lack of proper controls raised the likelihood of “misuse, theft, and diversion to unauthorized purposes.” A scandal last year involving rigged fuel contracts increased the pressure for improvements, and more attention is being given to keeping track of ammunition, which Nato officials say is a “top priority”.

“Reporting has been sketchy,” said Australian army Brigadier Scott Hicks, deputy director of the logistics and maintenance operation within the Nato-led Resolute Support training and assistance mission.”We’re getting better at it with fuel and we’re working on ammunition at the moment,” he said. Afghan officials acknowledge there have been cases of ammunition misuse, but deny the problem is widespread.

“Several forms and papers have to be filled out to obtain ammunition and there has to be accountability for everything,” said Mohammad Radmanish, a defence ministry spokesman.

Nato officers have, however, been trying to move the Afghan army to overhaul its logistics with new computerised systems and more timely reporting from the field that would enable unusual patterns of ammunition use to be spotted more quickly.

Poor pay prompts soldiers to discharge their weapons to produce saleable scrap metal thereby wasting money and putting strain on supplies.