The Afghan police training mess

Read it all and...

With Raw Recruits, Afghan Police Buildup Falters

...the Afghan National Police have the highest casualty rates of all the security forces fighting the Taliban; 646 died last year, compared with 282 Afghan Army soldiers and 388 NATO troops, according to NATO figures.

The death rate, poor pay and lack of equipment are among the reasons that a fourth of the officers quit every year, making the Afghan government’s lofty goals of substantially building up the police force even harder to achieve...

The international nature of the NATO-led training program has resulted in a welter of 20 different programs run by half a dozen countries and agencies with widely varying methodologies and standards. Officials are now trying to write a nationwide instruction program that will be more standardized...

Divided loyalties are another problem. Most of the recruits are first hired locally, and then sent to regional or national training centers for their eight-week course.

“I don’t agree with the word ‘national’ in Afghan National Police,” the head of the Central Training Center, Brig. Gen. Khudadad Agah, said. “They’re all local police, and the problem with that is, one has a brother who is with the Taliban, another has an uncle. We go on an operation and one brother calls another and they know we’re coming.”

By comparison, army troops are recruited nationally. Their units are mixed ethnically and geographically so soldiers are not posted in their own communities...

A post here on US Military Police working with the ANP (and Canadians) at Kandahar. And a brigade combat team of the US Army's 10th Mountain Division, based in northern New York near Ontario, is coming to Afstan with a police training focus (see near the end of 1) here).