The administration of US President Barack Obama maintains that Afghan security forces will be able to shoulder the responsibility for maintaining law and order after the scheduled departure of foreign forces from the country after 13 years of a disastrous occupation.

But the reality on the ground is different. If anything, the US approach is setting the ground for civil war in the country, according to reports.

It was known the moment the first foreign soldier landed in Afghanistan in October 2001 that the US-led foreign force was touching off a hornet’s nest. The US could be justified for its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan because the Taliban rulers of the country were sheltering Al Qaeda, the group held responsible for the most devastating extremist attack in the US, and were refusing to hand over Osama Bin Laden. But the US will be leaving behind a chaotic country when its military leaves at the end of 2014. That is indeed if it does leave as publicly announced.

Reports in the mainstream American media portray the Afghan Local Police (ALP) being trained and funded by the US since July 2010 as nothing more than armed militiamen who are committing severe crimes against Afghan civilians. The ALP is different from the 300,000 and plus Afghans who are being trained as the country’s military and other security forces.

According to the former commander of the US forces in Afghanistan, David Petraeus, the ALP, which will have 30,000 fighters before the scheduled American withdrawal, is “arguably the most critical element in our effort to help Afghanistan develop the capacity to secure itself.”

Petraeus is credited with following a similar strategy in Iraq, where he created the Sunni Awakening which mobilised local militias against Al Qaeda. The strategy might have worked in Iraq, but not in Afghanistan.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the ALP of “serious abuses, such as killings, rape, arbitrary detention, abductions, forcible land grabs, and illegal raids...”

The ALP has been accused of “beating teenage boys and hammering nails into the feet of one boy,” although no arrests were made. Members of the force have raided houses, stolen personal belongings, beat residents, and illegally detained a number of Afghans. Like in the other cases though, no arrests or investigations have been initiated because of the militias’ patronage links to senior Afghan officials, says HRW.

The result of such abuses, reports say, is widespread resentment. Many Afghans are now grouping into factions and ruling over various fiefdoms of Afghan territory. And they will be fighting with each other when the American military leaves.

“Mark my words, the moment the Americans leave, the civil war will begin,” Abdul Nasir, an Afghan, recently told the New Yorker. “This country will be divided into twenty-five or thirty fiefdoms, each with its own government.”

The scenario is similar to the Russian experience. In the 1980s, pro-regime militias were created to quell the insurgency against the Moscow-backed government in Kabul but many turned around and helped bring down the government.

The US is following a high-risk strategy to achieve short-term goals, and this means unleashing total anarchy in Afghanistan when the foreign forces leave the country in 2014.

For the moment, there does not seem to be an alternative to continued instability and chaos for the region. Events have to take their own course. The Obama administration wants to get out of the mess that the Bush administration left behind in Afghanistan, but it will not be an easy process.