Afghan security forces will be ready to take control by 2014: Lt General Caldwell

Nato expecting to achieve its target of 305,000 Afghans in their security forces by October of this year.

LONDON: The general in charge of Nato’s mission to train Afghan security forces said Thursday that they will be ready to take the lead for security within Afghanistan by Nato's target date of December 2014.

US Lieutenant General William Caldwell, who assumed command of the Nato Training Mission Afghanistan (NTM-A) in November 2009, said this during a press briefing at the US Embassy in London.

Recruitment had risen from about 800 per month in September 2009 to about 6,000 new recruits per month, he said, and Nato is expecting to achieve its target of 305,000 Afghans in their security forces by October of this year.

Regarding the infiltration of security forces by the Taliban, Lt General Caldwell said that Nato had trained 220 counter intelligence agents in the last 8 months within the Afghan National Army whose task was to find infiltrators and those who may be trying to turn others towards the Taliban. A more rigorous vetting process had also been introduced for new recruits and the entire existing army was also undergoing a vetting process.

There have been a number of recent cases of rogue Afghan security personnel killing foreign soldiers. Earlier this month, two American soldiers on a training mission were killed by an Afghan border policeman.

Admitting that the recruitment of Pashtuns into the security forces remained a challenge, Caldwell said that Pashtuns remain under represented within the security forces. Only 3.7 per cent of Pashtuns being recruited are from southern Afghanistan as opposed to a target figure of 10 per cent. In relation to their percentage in the population, Tajiks are over represented in the Afghan National Army by about 8 per cent and by more than 15 per cent in the police.

Caldwell went on to detail progress made by the Mission in the last 18 months, particularly in education. Since April 2010, he said, the NTM-A had taken on the task of educating army and police and now employed 2,000 Afghan teachers for this purpose.

“Every day 34,000 people are taking mandatory literacy training and by this December 50 per cent of the army and police should be literate” he said.

Only 14 per cent of new recruits are literate he pointed out.

The Mission will start to train Afghans to become trainers this year and the aim, he said, was for Afghans to be in the lead for training by December 2012.