Military products getting ripped off in Afghanistan by locals, 2 years later..

As with everything during this conflict, I try to find something humorous in a story, had to dig for this one.. This is just plain sad. Incompetence..

In Afghanistan, theft still plagues U.S. military

Two years after the U.S. military took steps to get the problem under control, the smuggling of equipment and sensitive material from U.S. bases in Afghanistan continues.

By Kim Barker

KABUL, Afghanistan — The red shipping container was filled with supplies for U.S. soldiers just arriving in Afghanistan: camouflage netting, a new radio kit, bayonets, computer equipment, a wooden American flag and personal belongings, from Cheer laundry detergent to a copy of the fiction thriller “Consent to Kill.”

A truck carrying the shipping container in early May to the newly deployed 201st Engineer Battalion of the Kentucky National Guard was stolen just before reaching Bagram Air Base, the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan.

It was one of 13 Bagram-bound shipping containers stolen and recovered by Kabul police in a single week, said Ali Shah Paktiawal, director of criminal investigations.

“I think something’s wrong on the inside,” an angry Paktiawal told three Americans in civilian clothes who drove an hour from Bagram to the police station to see the shipping container.

“It’s possible,” said one of the Americans with a shrug.

Two years after the U.S. military took steps to get the problem under control, the smuggling of equipment and sensitive material from U.S. bases in Afghanistan continues.

The stolen goods are not difficult to find, sold in bazaars near most of the military bases. At the market outside Bagram in late May, the Tribune found shops selling everything from army medical kits to small computer memory devices, known as “thumb drives” or “flash drives,” containing military records, soldiers’ Social Security numbers, maps and other documents labeled with security warnings.

The culprits are likely Afghans who work for the Americans inside the base, and the fear is that the lost equipment or information could wind up in the hands of insurgents and therefore pose a danger to U.S. forces.

The problems persist despite U.S. officials acknowledging the problem two years ago following media reports about computer memory drives being sold outside Bagram. The military took several measures in response, including warning soldiers about how they should handle personal items.

But the men who sell the stolen items at bazaars outside Bagram and in Kabul say the amount of military merchandise available has increased in the past year, and Paktiawal said his police are recovering more shipping containers than before.

A U.S. official from a military base in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was seeing shipping containers smuggled “all the time.” But Capt. Christian Patterson, a spokesman for the U.S. base at Bagram, said the amount of smuggling has actually decreased in the past year.

“Any amount of smuggling is taken seriously and investigated thoroughly,” he wrote in response to e-mailed questions.

Smuggling off military bases has always been common in Afghanistan. Fuel trucks have been hijacked on their way into the country from Pakistan. Some goods bound for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, end up in the compounds of government officials, said an ISAF official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A market just a few yards away from Bagram’s front gate is a smugglers’ paradise. Here, it’s possible to buy soldiers’ stolen iPods and “Afghanistan Operation Enduring Freedom” mugs for half as much as inside the gates.

A shop run by Ahmad Nasir, 26, sells camouflage uniforms and a medic’s camouflage backpack stuffed with supplies. Among the items he was selling were a Palm Pilot cut out of a U.S. military vehicle, and “The Radio Telephone Operator Handbook” from the Army in Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., marked “for official use only.”

“The boys inside are stealing everything,” Nasir said. “There is no obstacle. Once the Americans tried to stop them, and then there was no business here.”

Used thumb drives containing military records are also sold in the market, despite measures taken by the military after a Los Angeles Times story in April 2006 showed sensitive material was on some drives that ended up there. At that time, U.S. soldiers bought all available thumb drives and for months inspected the market. The army also put out a new training pamphlet called “New Technology New Threats” advising soldiers that thumb drives and iPods should be treated as a security threat.

The pamphlet also referred to the leak of social security numbers as “troubling” because a soldier “can be a victim of lifelong credit fraud — which could be used by the terrorists to fund their operations.”

The drives again are easily available just outside the gates of Bagram. Most of the more than 50 used drives examined by the Tribune in late May had the ability to set a password, but only five were password-protected. The information was considered so valuable, used thumb drives from Bagram were significantly more expensive than new thumb drives from Bagram.

Many used drives contained soldiers’ personal documents, such as family pictures, but some information was sensitive. One drive showed an overview map of the U.S. base at Jalalabad Airfield, which clearly marked the locations where the Special Forces and the CIA worked.

Another thumb drive, apparently stolen in May, listed the military leaves scheduled this year for 350 soldiers in Task Force Cincinnatus, which operates out of Bagram. This drive also included the Social Security numbers of 99 soldiers, their leave dates and their bases in Afghanistan.

Other thumb drives showed soldiers’ home addresses, work histories and religion. Detailed pictures and diagrams pointed out key instruments of the Apache helicopter, used in Afghanistan. Soldiers outlined the faults of a new ground mobility vehicle designed for the Special Forces.

One drive, stolen from the possessions of a recently arrived soldier in Kentucky’s 201st battalion, included another battalion’s 116-page game plan for tactical operations in Afghanistan, including how to search homes and people and what to look for. “SECURITY WARNING!” the section on vehicle searching said. “All individuals handling this information are required to protect it from unauthorized disclosure.”

On the same drive, a pamphlet from the Combined Explosives Exploitation Cell for Afghanistan was marked “controlled and limited distribution” and “sensitive materials.” The material “is sensitive and requires safeguarding,” said the 29-page pamphlet, outlining bomb triggers, kinds of bombs and timers. The pamphlet had pictures of how motorcycles and rickshaw carts are disguised as bombs.

When asked about such smuggling, Patterson, the military spokesman, said joint patrols of police and coalition forces investigate the presence of illegal goods wherever found.

“Maintaining the safety of our service members and their personal information is paramount,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Careful monitoring occurs to prevent digital storage devices with sensitive information on them from appearing off base and endangering Bagram personnel. When these items are discovered, they are confiscated immediately.”

It isn’t quite clear how the merchandise is stolen, especially shipping containers, larger than many Afghan homes and carried on large trucks. Sometimes the culprits are the Afghans who work on the base; at several shops in the teeming market outside Bagram, workers offered to have their friends inside steal whatever was needed. Sometimes the thieves are Afghan soldiers.

As part of a program called Afghan First — which encourages the international community to support fledgling Afghan businesses — most of the companies that move shipping containers from one base to another are locally run, Patterson said.

He said the investigation into the shipping container stolen before it reached Bagram was ongoing and the container was still being held by the Interior Ministry.

Afghan officials would not let a reporter see most of the equipment inside but did allow her to watch some of it being unloaded.

“There are weapons. There are sensitive items,” said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, who knew what was inside the container.

kbarker@tribune.com

Tribune correspondent

From Chicago Tribune