Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan

Lieutenant Colonel Abdul Qadir, Director of the Helmand Counter Narcotics Police.

The Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan (CNPA) was a specialist force under the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs created in 2003.^[1] The CNPA was the lead agency for counter narcotics investigations in Afghanistan and had an establishment of some 3000 officers. Candidates for the 5-week long Counter Narcotics Course must have completed an 8-week basic police course and are carefully selected.

The busiest and most successful CNPA unit in Afghanistan was situated in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand Province. The United Kingdom funded a retired police officer to work in the Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team to assist the CNPA with their training and development programme. The operations advisor for Helmand CNPA was a senior British military officer who provided guidance on intelligence-led operations and also accompanied the CNPA on interdiction operations throughout Helmand Province, where he provided direction on evidence gathering and intelligence exploitation.

The Director of the Helmand Counter Narcotics Police was Lieutenant Colonel Abdul Qadir. In addition to seizing drugs and arresting those involved in drug trafficking, Lt Col Qadir's team targeted those involved in facilitating heroin production, including opium dealers and suppliers/distributors of precursor chemicals. Very often CNPA officers and their families lived in the same neighbourhoods as those involved in drug trafficking. This posed a huge security problem as the officers fear retribution if they take action.

References[]

See also[]

• Afghan National Police

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