Comrades in arms: Roto 8 of the Police Operational Mentor and Liaison Team

By Major Jason T. Quilliam

There are few greater honours for a soldier than to be able to pass along knowledge and expertise garnered over years of professional training and experience to others who have not had the same opportunities. Some of the most rewarding jobs in the Canadian Forces are in training and education. In that vein, the mission of the Joint Task Force Afghanistan (JTF-Afg) Police Operational Mentor and Liaison Team (P-OMLT) applies the best traditions of the CF training system, along with the professional lessons learned in Canada’s mission to Afghanistan, to mentor and train the Afghan National Police (ANP).

The P-OMLT combines infantry soldiers and officers from the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (3 PPCLI) with Military Police (MP) soldiers from 1 MP Unit in Edmonton augmented by others from across Canada. Part of, this motley crew has spent the last five months operating in some of the most dangerous places in Kandahar Province.

The P-OMLT originated as an offshoot of the Operational Mentor and Liaison Teams (OMLT) that have achieved great success with the 1st Brigade, 205 Corps of the Afghan National Army (ANA) since August 2005. After a period of integration into the Stabilization Companies of the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team, with Roto 8 the P-OMLT became part of the JTF-Afghanistan Military Police Company, based at Kandahar Airfield and led by Major Brian Frei. This arrangement gives the P-OMLT the strong police focus it needs, while accommodating the intricacies of mentoring and advising on the development, logistics and operational control of a large police force. The significant gains the P-OMLT has achieved since the change suggest that we’ve found our place in the world, happily ensconced as a sub-unit of the MP Coy.

Located at Camp Nathan Smith, the KPRT base in Kandahar City, P-OMLT Headquarters consists of one MP officer (me), a logistics officer as second in command who also mentors at Provincial Headquarters, and an MP warrant officer who runs the operations cell. We monitor the progress our teams are making in their efforts to mentor ANP detachments in the field, andtheir operations with the ANP and other elements of the coalition forces. We also liaise with the headquarters staff of formations operating in the “Ring of Steel” Brigadier-General Ménard has established around Kandahar City. It’s extraordinarily rewarding work, the highlight of our careers so far. But the real work, the important, nation-building progress, is occurring out on the ground with our teams.

Daily operations and training with the ANP are our bread and butter. Reporting from Afghanistan over the last few years has focused on the significant and excellent progress of the ANA, which has evolved into a competent and developed force capable of conducting kinetic operations against the insurgents who still threaten to bring their country back to the dark ages before 2001. This is largely due to the efforts of the OMLT. However, little has been said of the police that are making striking advances daily towards the same goal of allowing Afghanistan to govern itself.

While the U.S. 97th MP Battalion from Fort Riley, Kansas, focuses on the ANP in Kandahar City proper, the P-OMLT looks outwards to the districts surrounding the provincial capital. In locations that have become part of Canadian Forces lore, like Vimy Ridge, Ortona and Kap’yong, the P-OMLT teams are deeply embedded with district police officers, sharing their living conditions, passing on expertise, and accepting the same risks and hazards as their Afghan counterparts.

Daily, the men and women of the P-OMLT face the possibility of coming under insurgent fire or encountering an improvised explosive device. Daily, undeterred, they leave the relatively safe confines of their camps out in the dusty countryside of Kandahar Province and go to work with the ANP.

A typical day’s work might include a joint patrol into a village or town, mentoring the ANP through rudimentary community policing. The goal is to show villagers that their area has a police force that cares about their well being. The ANP take complaints, settle arguments and, more importantly, demonstrate that the government has provided a recognizable, competent agency that is willing and able to take on the insurgency and its negative effect on village life.

Most villagers just want to be left alone to sell their wares, harvest their crops, and live the life generations of their forebears lived, irrespective of governmental shifts and regime changes. Under P-OMLT mentorship, The ANP are learning to become not only a buffer between the villagers and the insurgency, but also a municipal police agency like those of developed countries like Canada.

Another day may see the teams visiting checkpoints and police sub-stations in their areas of responsibility, meeting with the ANP, listening to their concerns regarding pay, equipment, food and other issues. The P-OMLT members will photograph the ANP members, determine how many are properly registered and have genuine identification, and count the weapons and equipment. Usually, they have time for a training session or two. Since the ANP rank and file is largely illiterate, the P-OMLT teams focus on material they can teach through demonstrations and practice: weapons training, searching vehicles, searching for explosive devices and first aid are favourites, but the ANP are also learning more abstract material such as the rudiments of police ethics.

Each P-OMLT team has a direct link to, and mentoring responsibility for, a District Chief of Police. This focused mentoring has given the teams considerable influence over ANP growth at district level. By showing the police chiefs how to lead their troops, how to organize their headquarters, and how to deal with higher headquarters, the P-OMLT has significantly increased ANP effectiveness throughout its area.

As Roto 8 rolls toward the end of its deployment, we begin handing over our responsibilities to Roto 9. We are also looking to achieve as many positive effects as we can before heading back to Canada.

When we leave, we will be absolutely sure that we helped a burgeoning organization grow into a competent, professional police force. Some significant work certainly remains to be done but, as we look back, we will know that our efforts, in what is unequivocally one of the most demanding and dangerous operational environments imaginable, made a valuable contribution to Canada’s mission in Afghanistan.