KABUL — The Afghan government is scaling back its contentious plans to push private security companies out of the country.
After months of often-frustrating debate with Western leaders, Afghan officials announced Monday that they’re going to allow the widely criticized security firms to keep providing protection for international development groups and NATO supply convoys for the foreseeable future.
The decision is expected to forestall a threatened flight of development workers, who had warned that they’d be forced to abandon their risky work in Afghanistan if the proposed ban took effect.
“This has enabled us to keep our projects going,” said Steven O’Connor, the chief spokesman for Development Alternatives International, a major U.S. contractor that had planned to shutter key projects in Afghanistan if the security-company closures went through.
“We’re cautiously optimistic,” he said.
As part of the new order, security firms will be ordered to move their headquarters out of Kabul, where some have been involved in several confrontations with civilians that have sparked destabilizing riots in recent years.
In a surprise move in August, President Hamid Karzai announced a sweeping order that would have forced dozens of private security firms to close Afghan operations by year-end.
