![\"conor\"](\"http:\/\/liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com\/files\/2010\/02\/conor-259x194.jpg\" "\\"conor\\"")
<\/p>\nKABUL – As the first of the additional 30,000 American troops begin arriving in Afghanistan, the U.S. military and its NATO partners are also launching an ambitious effort to increase the size and improve the quality of the Afghan National Security Forces \u2013 including a massive expansion and reorganization of the Afghan National Police and Army.<\/p>\n
Under the new initiative, the Afghan National Army will increase from its current size of 104,000 to 136,000 by October and the Afghan National Police will expand from 96,000 to 109,000.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Additionally, both Afghan soldiers and police officers have received a significant pay increase that U.S. officials hope will prevent young Afghans from joining the insurgency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to compete with the Taliban,\u201d said Col. Gregory Breazile, a spokesman for the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan. \u201cWe need to have comparable pay.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the first time ever, police from the ANP will be paid the same amount \u2013$150 a month -as soldiers from the ANA, and members will receive an additional $100 a month for working in the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan like Helmand, Khost, Kandahar, Paktika.<\/p>\n
In the past, police were paid much less despite they fact they faced far greater risks. On average, Afghan police are four times as likely to be killed by insurgents as Afghan soldiers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere wasn\u2019t an incentive to join the police,\u201d said Col. Breazile. \u201cIt was a higher threat for less money.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to U.S. officials, the pay increase has already helped. In December, 8,000 Afghans signed up for the Army, 3,000 more than the target number.<\/p>\n
But as recruiting numbers surge, questions remain about the quality of the overall security forces and of the new recruits. Most are illiterate and many join simply for the money – not a desire to fight the Taliban.<\/p>\n
Desertion and corruption remain serious problems \u2013 but over time, U.S. officials hope they will be dramatically reduced with better training and better incentive programs.<\/p>\n
Currently, the Afghan Parliament is working on a bill to provide a pension plan for senior members of the Afghan National Security Forces in hopes of encouraging older, less trained soldiers and police officers to retire.<\/p>\n
The idea is to persuade older Afghans to retire with a pension – giving them a long- term incentive to support the fledgling Afghan government, while also providing career opportunities for newly-recruited and better trained young Afghan soldiers and police officers.<\/p>\n
A similar program was launched in Iraq several years ago, and is credited with helping to stabilize and modernize the Iraqi military and government.<\/p>\n
“The Afghan government has to be stable and look as if it is a permanent institution,\u201d said Col. Breazile. \u201cThis helps reinforce it permanence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KABUL – As the first of the additional 30,000 American troops begin arriving in Afghanistan, the U.S. military and its NATO partners are also launching an ambitious effort to increase the size and improve the quality of the Afghan National Security Forces \u2013 including a massive expansion and reorganization of the Afghan National Police and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4603,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258959\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}