Background:

CIA had been training and running Afghan special forces known as Counter Terrorism Pursuit Teams, or CTPT.

The teams are located in the Provinces of Kunar, Paktia, Kandahar, Kabul, Khost and Nangarhar. The plan is to gradually hand them over to the National Directorate of Security (NDS). So far, the Kunar and Paktia units have been transferred to Afghan control.

See also: Kandahar Strike Force, which is based at Mullah Omar’s old house, also known as Camp Gecko and is alleged to work closely with the CIA and to have been run by President Karzai’slate half-brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai; Afghan Guard Force which operates in Loya Paktia; in Khost, US SOF co-opted parts of the 25th Army Division, although it was officially DDR-ed, the soldiers never left their base and were instead re-designated as the Afghan Guard Force, with the divisional commander, the PDPA officer, General Khialbaz Sherzoi.
 

The CTPT teams are feared by many Afghans and have been implicated in extra-judicial killings of civilians. In 2019, the head of the Afghan intelligence service, Masoom Stanikzai, was forced to resign after one of these units was implicated in the summary execution of four brothers.

Earlier this year, in Afghanistan’s eastern Khost province, one of the teams was accused of gunning down civilians in a counterterrorism operation. The United Nations has also criticized the tactics of these units, previously blaming them for a rise in civilian casualties along with insurgent groups.