ACHIN, Afghanistan
American and Afghan officials have begun helping a number of anti-Taliban militias that have independently taken up arms against insurgents in several parts of Afghanistan, prompting hopes of a large-scale tribal rebellion against the Taliban.
The emergence of the militias, which took some leaders in Kabul by surprise, has so encouraged U.S. and Afghan officials that they are planning to spur the growth of similar armed groups across the Taliban heartland in the southern and eastern parts of the country.
U.S. and Afghan officials say they are hoping that the plan, called the Community Defense Initiative, will bring together thousands of gunmen to protect their neighborhoods from Taliban insurgents. Already there are hundreds of Afghans who are acting on their own against the Taliban, officials say.
The endeavor represents one of the most ambitious -- and one of the riskiest -- plans for regaining the initiative against the Taliban, who are fighting more vigorously than at any time since 2001.
By harnessing the militias, U.S. and Afghan officials hope to rapidly increase the number of Afghans fighting the Taliban. That could supplement the U.S. and Afghan forces here, and whatever number of U.S. troops President Obama decides to send. The militias could help fill the gap while the Afghan army and police train and grow -- a project that could take years to bear fruit.
The U.S. officials hope the militias will encourage an increasingly demoralized Afghan population to take a stake in the war against the Taliban.
"The idea is to get people to take responsibility for their own security," said a senior U.S. military official in Kabul, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "In many places they are already doing that."
The growth of the anti-Taliban militias runs the risk that they could turn on one another, or against the Afghan and the U.S. governments, as has happened in the past. The Americans say they will keep the groups small and will limit the scope of their activities to protecting villages and manning checkpoints. For now, they are not arming the groups because they already have guns. The Americans also say they will tie the groups to the Afghan government and tightly control their activities so they do not create more warlords, who have defied the government's authority for years.
The plan echoes a similar movement that unfolded in Iraq, beginning in late 2006, in which Sunni tribes turned against Islamist extremists.
That movement, called the Sunni Awakening, brought tens of thousands of former insurgents into government-supervised militias and helped substantially reduce the violence in Iraq. A rebellion on a similar scale seems unlikely in Afghanistan, in large part because the tribes here are so much weaker than those in Iraq.
The first phase of the Afghan plan, now being carried out by U.S. Special Forces soldiers, is to set up or expand the militias in areas with a population of about 1 million people. Special Forces soldiers have been fanning out across the countryside, descending from helicopters into valleys where the residents have taken up arms against the Taliban and offering their help.
"We are trying to reach out to these groups that have organized themselves," Col. Christopher Kolenda said in Kabul.
Afghan and U.S. officials say they plan to use the militias as tripwires for Taliban incursions, enabling them to call the army or the police if things get out of hand.
The official assistance to the militias so far has been modest, consisting mainly of ammunition and food, officials said. But U.S. and Afghan officials say they are also planning to train the fighters and provide communication equipment.
"What we are talking about is a local, spontaneous and indigenous response to the Taliban," said Hanif Atmar, the Afghan interior minister. "The Afghans are saying, "We are willing and determined and capable to defend our country; just give us the resources."
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