An Afghan Commando pulls himself over a rope ladder in an obstacle course in Afghanistan's Wardak Province Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009.
An Afghan Commando instructor photographs a Commando as he climbs a rope in an obstacle course in Afghanistan's Wardak Province
An Afghan Commando crawls beneath barbed wire in an obstacle course in Afghanistan's Wardak Province Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009.
An Afghan Commando and a U.S. Soldier from 20th Special Forces Group take part in a training exercise in Afghanistan's Wardak Province Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009. A well-trained and disciplined Afghan force of police and soldiers is considered the fragile government's best hope of keeping power against the Taliban, and is central to the NATO strategy of curbing violence in this country.
An Afghan Commando navigates monkey bars in an obstacle course in Afghanistan's Wardak Province Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009. A well-trained and disciplined Afghan force of police and soldiers is considered the fragile government's best hope of keeping power against the Taliban, and is central to the NATO strategy of curbing violence in this country.
An Afghan Commando pulls himself along a rope in an obstacle course in Afghanistan's Wardak Province
Even before the American paratroopers entered the Afghan barracks, the lack of discipline was evident: torn screens, trash collecting in the hallways, bedrooms and bushes. The checkpoints were even worse, they said, with used syringes littering the ground.
But the training effort has been drastically slowed by rampant corruption, widespread illiteracy, vanishing supplies, lack of discipline — and the added burden of unifying a force made up of a patchwork of often hostile ethnic groups.
At the same time, the police and the Afghan army face a growing insurgency whose determination was evident in last weekend's battle in Nuristan province, when hundreds of militants stormed an outpost, killing eight American troops and capturing about 20 Afghan police and soldiers.Gen. Stanley McChrystal's plan to double the number of Afghan security forces from about 200,000 to about 400,000 hinges on units like the 82nd's 4th Brigade Combat Team, whose paratroopers in Lashkar Gah are struggling to instill discipline in the local men serving as police reserves.Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, is one of the front lines against the Taliban. U.S. and British forces have struggled to hold the region and struggled even more to build up infrastructure that will let them leave it in Afghan hands. The Afghan forces' disarray was unwelcome news.
The lack of readiness on the part of the police and soldiers should be expected from any new force, said Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay, the chief spokesman for the international forces in Afghanistan.
"From a systemic perspective, it shows you these are very young soldiers," he said.
Young or not, in Helmand they will be key.
U.S. and British forces are holding a narrow 90 mile (150 kilometers)-long strip of the Helmand River valley and gradually expanding that safety net outward. The Afghan government in Kabul is dispatching district chiefs in areas once firmly in the Taliban's grip, and residents are slowly getting services including electricity and clean water.These are the gains that a local police force must safeguard, even as officers fend off the Taliban violence that targets them as much as international forces.
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Airstrikes against Taliban militants left 10 insurgents dead in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province Wednesday night, a statement of U.S.-led Coalition press office in southeastern religion issued here said on Thursday.
Armed militants attacked a coalition military convoy in Gomal district Wednesday night and forces called on war plane killing 10armed militants on the spot, the statement added.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and international troops have yet to make comments.
Eastern Afghanistan has been the scene of Taliban-led insurgency as the top U.S., NATO commander in his military assessment required up to 40,000 more additional troops to combat insurgency in the post-Taliban country.
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