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Afghan police crisis as thousands quit force
Afghanistan's police force, whose success and stability is crucial to allowing the government to withdraw British troops, is losing nearly one in five recruits every year, new figures reveal.
Foreign Office statistics show that more than 20,000 officers from the Afghan National Police (ANP), the country's main law enforcement agency, have left over the past year. The Foreign Office figures will cause concern in the armed forces, where the success of the police is seen as the basis for handing control to an Afghan government in 2014 and British troop withdrawal in 2015.
Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said the figures were "worryingly high" and could play a significant role in determining when Britain can leave.
"In order to get into the condition where we can hand over the country to the Afghans themselves, to manage the security of the country, we need not only a capable army, we need a strong police force," he said. "We are a long way from there. The Afghan national army has still got a long way to go even if it is improving, and the police are some way behind that."
Kemp, who was responsible for training Afghan forces, including the ANP, in 2003, said that the figures would be key in defining when British forces can leave. "Numbers are still important. If we are not getting to where we need to be in terms of either quality or numbers, that is a major concern in terms of being able to hand over to the Afghans in 2014 as is our aspiration," he told the Observer.