In an echo of the “tribal awakening” in Iraq, in which the United States armed and funded independent militias willing to fight against al-Qaeda, American and Afghan officials are now supporting non-government Afghan militias that have taken up arms to defend their villages against the Taliban. The strategy helped quell the insurgency in Iraq in 2007 and 2008 and America is hoping the trend will spread to the Taliban’s Pashtun heartland in the south and east of the country.