Nato faces Afghan training shortfall, looks offshore

Nato still faces a shortage of specialist instructors to train Afghan forces and has begun sending hundreds to study outside Afghanistan as a stopgap solution, the head of Nato's training mission said on Sunday.
-- Nato short 900 specialist trainers in Afghanistan
-- Some Afghan officers to train in UAE, Turkey
With the Afghanistan war entering its tenth year, Nato wants to build up the local army and police to around 300,000 troops by October next year as Western governments start withdrawing their soldiers to allow Afghans to assume responsibility for security.
Nato training chief Lieutenant General William Caldwell said his mission was short of 900 instructors, mostly in the police, but also to train Afghans to become independent of Nato in areas such as logistics, maintenance, transport and medical services.
"We do have a trainer shortfall, we don't have enough specialty trainers to do what we need to do to continue with the professionalisation of the police, the army and the air force," Caldwell told reporters.
Progress with Afghanistan's military will be high on the agenda when Nato countries meet in Lisbon next month to discuss the war and when the White House holds its own review of Afghanistan strategy a month later in Washington.
US President Barack Obama and his Nato allies have come under increasing pressure at home over the war as foreign casualties rise. Violence is at its worst since the war began in 2001 despite the presence of more than 150,000 foreign troops.
Nato officials say they have made progress since the training mission began a year ago to build up Afghan force numbers, and to tackle basics such as literacy, attrition and improving conditions for local troops and police.
Trainers say of the 900 necessary positions, at least 440 are critical between now and June to ensure training advances, including posts for the national civil order police, aviation trainers, pilots, doctors and army communication specialists.
Caldwell said Nato was covering some shortages by sending Afghan troops for instruction outside Afghanistan, including recently to United Arab Emirates to train nearly 300 officers with French troops and soon to Turkey for police training.
"We are willing to explore training opportunities outside of Afghanistan on a short-term basis with the understanding that we would always rather build the capacity and capability inside Afghanistan," he said.
Obama ordered 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan last December but said the first US soldiers will return from July 2011 as training allowed Afghans to take over. Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he wants local military to take the lead from 2014.