Afghans flee en masse from Karzai's army

5 September 2011

At least one in seven Afghan soldiers deserted from the Karzai's puppet army during the first six months this year, according to statistics compiled by NATO that shows an increase in desertion, reports the Washington Post.

Between January and June, more than 24,000 militants from Kazai's armed formations walked off the job, more than twice as many as in the same period last year, according to the NATO statistics. In June alone, more than 5,000 soldiers deserted, nearly 3 percent of the 170,000-strong force.

As recently as September 2009, more Afghan soldiers had been quitting than joining the army, but that trend had been reversed by aggressive recruiting, salary increases and guarantees of regular leave.

According to Karzai and NATO officials, soldiers who leave often complain about poor living conditions or commanders who do not allow a regular vacation schedule.

In addition, the devastating effect on soldiers has been created by rampant corruption in the ranks of the army, as well as poor management. These problems, according to Washington Times, existed for many years.

Afghan apostates and NATO aggressors said they believe they can continue to make progress toward expanding the army to about 200,000 soldiers. But such a high rate of desertion may hinder their plans.

Moreover, the reduction of the Karzai armed formations is very dangerous for the Kabul regime in connection with the withdrawal of US-NATO troops from the country.

"The army has got to figure out how to get their attrition down", said Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, who oversees NATO's efforts to build up the Afghan security forces.

NATO commanders are trying to reduce the scale of defections to approximately 17% per year. Meanwhile, about 35% (on an annualized basis) of the soldiers and officers fled this summer from the Afghan army.

However, the puppet "defense minister" of the Karzai regime, Abdur-Rahim Wardak, expressed his confidence that the problem of desertion "does not exist".

However, Canadian major-general Michael Day acknowledged that the current scale of the problem is a direct threat to American plans to transfer all power in Afghanistan to the puppet Karzai's Kabul administration by the end of 2014.

"We shall have serious problems in 3.5 years, if the situation doesn't change", said Day.

Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center

Source: Kavkaz Center.
Link: http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2011/09/05/15069.shtml.