Information on whether Kabul's civilian police placed under surveillance and apprehended suspected Mujahideen activists on behalf of KhAD, the secret police, from 1986 to 1992 could not be found among the sources consulted by the DIRB.

The following may be of interest. In January 1986, KhAD became the ministry of state security (AI Nov. 1986, 6). According to the 1991 Asia Watch attachment, although most arrests are carried out by security forces under the ministry of state security (WAD), the sarandoi (police) was at that time empowered to carry out arrests and was responsible to the ministry of the interior (23 Feb. 1991, 51). The source adds that "certain sarandoi detachments provide support for the WAD security forces under which they have a paramilitary function. The sarandoi also has the responsibility for ordinary police functions, including traffic patrols and interdiction of smuggling" (ibid.).

Please consult the attachment from Afghanistan: A Country Study for general information on KhAD and the sarandoy. According to this attachment, the sarandoy "played an active role in offensives against the mujahidiin ... . Sarandoy relations with Parcham-dominated KHAD were tense" (1986, 333). Responses to Information Requests AFG19845.E and AFG19846.E, both of 22 February 1995, also provide general information on KhAD and the civilian police of Kabul. Both these Responses are available at Regional Documentation Centres.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the DIRB within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Afghanistan: A Country Study. 1986. Edited by Richard F. Nyrop and Donald M. Seekins. Washington, DC: Secretary of the Army.

Amnesty International. November 1986. Afghanistan: Torture of Political Prisoners. (AI Index: ASA/11/04/86). New York: Amnesty International.

Asia Watch. 23 February 1991. Afghanistan: The Forgotten War: Human Rights Abuses and Violations of the Laws of War Since the Soviet Withdrawal. New York: Human Rights Watch.

Afghanistan: A Country Study. 1986. Edited by Richard F. Nyrop and Donald M. Seekins. Washington, DC: Secretary of the Army, pp. 328-34.

Amnesty International. November 1986. Afghanistan: Torture of Political Prisoners. (AI Index: ASA/11/04/86). New York: Amnesty International, p. 6.

Asia Watch. 23 February 1991. Afghanistan: The Forgotten War: Human Rights Abuses and Violations of the Laws of War Since the Soviet Withdrawal. New York: Human Rights Watch, p. 51.

Afghanistan: The Great Game Revisited. 1987. Edited by Rosanne Klass.

Amnesty International. August 1991. Afghanistan: Unfair Trials by Special Tribunals.

British Refugee Council. n.d. Nick van Hear. The Afghan Tragedy.

Human Concern International. 1990. Jane Murphy Thomas. Afghanistan: A Forgotten War.

International League for Human Rights. 1994. Collective Responsibility in the New Afghan War.

International Peace Academy. 1992. William Maley and Fazel Haq Saikal. Political Order in Post-Communist Afghanistan.

Kafai, Abdolhossein Majid. June 1984. Country Report on Afghanistan.

Laber, Jeri and Barnett R. Rubin. 1988. A Nation is Dying.

News from Asia Watch. 1991 to present.

Office of Asylum Affairs, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S.A. September 1994. Afghanistan: Profile of Asylum Claims and Country Conditions.

The Refugee Policy Group. December 1991. Afghanistan: Trends and Prospects for Refugee Repatriation.

U.S. Committee for Refugees. December 1992. Hiram A. Ruiz. Left Out in the Cold: The Perilous Homecoming of Afghan Refugees.

_____. January 1985. Allen K. Jones. Afghan Refugees: Five Years Later.

World Encyclopedia of Police Forces and Penal Systems. 1989.

On-line search of media sources.

Oral sources.

Note on oral sources:

Oral sources are usually contacted when documentary sources have been exhausted. However, oral sources must agree to be quoted in a publicly available Response to Information Request. If they refuse, the Response will read "no information currently available." Contacting oral sources is also subject to time constraints; for example, there are periods of the year when academics are unavailable.