Well, it worked in Iraq…..but will be meet with the same success in Afghanistan?

The United States backs a proposed Afghan government plan to engage tribal elders in the war against the resurgent Taliban, a move seen by critics as reviving militias, its top envoy said on Tuesday.

Although, seven years on from the Taliban’s ouster, there are nearly 70,000 NATO-led troops in Afghanistan — to be boosted by up to 30,000 extra U.S. soldiers by the summer — alongside tens of thousands of Afghan forces, William Wood said this was not enough to protect all Afghan villages from the militants.

Called the “Community Guard Programme,” the pilot project will cover southern and eastern areas where the al Qaeda-backed Taliban are most active, said Wood.

“The … programme … is meant to strengthen local communities and local tribes in their ability to protect what they consider to be their traditional homes,” Wood told a news conference at the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

In Iraq, the recruitment of Sunni Arab tribesmen to help fight al Qaeda is widely seen as one of the factors behind a decline in the level of violence.

Community Shuras, or councils, will choose volunteers for defending their villages against the Taliban under the plan, proposed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Wood said.

Wood said successive governments in Afghanistan had relied for centuries on tribal chiefs and community leaders for protecting their villages.

He refused to say who would provide arms to the groups, but emphasized that the United States was not doing so.

Many ordinary Afghans and some politicians have spoken against the plan, which comes amid an escalation in violence this year in Afghanistan, the bloodiest period since Taliban’s ouster.

What stopped this plan from happening 7 years ago?