Reinforcement troops from the Afghan army prepared to travel to Kandahar.Ahmad Masood/Reuters
Dan De Luce, The Cable/Foreign Policy: Afghan Forces Face a ‘Crisis’: Watchdog
Without NATO troops at their side, the Afghan army and police are struggling and often failing on the battlefield against the Taliban and Islamic State extremists, despite $64 billion in assistance from the United States since 2002. That’s the sobering conclusion of the U.S. official in charge of auditing aid money for Afghanistan, John Sopko.
The capability of the Afghan security forces has deteriorated since the bulk of U.S. and coalition troops withdrew in 2014, and several provinces are now under serious threat of falling to the militants, according to Sopko, who testified before a congressional panel on Friday.
Many of the billions in U.S. assistance for the Afghan army and police has been spent inefficiently or squandered, he said. And since the departure of most American troops, it has become increasingly difficult to exercise real oversight over the program, or to get a clear picture of the state of the forces, as Washington has to depend on unreliable information provided by ministries in Kabul, according to Sopko.
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WNU Editor: A depressing report. You cannot help but feel that the Afghan Army will never be able to be the effective fighting force that Afghanistan so sorely needs.