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‘I will never rejoin’: Record casualties take toll on Afghan forces
KABUL, Nov 23, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – After losing countless comrades to better-
equipped Taliban fighters and having his salary stolen by superiors, Afghan
soldier Beg is fed up and plans to quit the army. He is not alone.
Afghanistan’s beleaguered security forces have long seen high rates of
attrition. But now, as the Taliban maintain the upper hand in the 17-year
conflict, casualties are reaching what experts warn are unsustainable levels.
Since the start of 2015, when local forces took over from US-led NATO
combat troops to secure the country, nearly 30,000 Afghan soldiers and police
have been killed, President Ashraf Ghani revealed this month — a figure far
higher than anything previously acknowledged.
That is an average of around 20 soldiers killed per day.
“If the casualty rate continues like this, the day will come when we will
have no one left to recruit,” warned military analyst Atiqullah Amarkhail.
The shocking mortality rate has sent already shaky morale to new lows, with
many soldiers questioning how much further they should push their luck.
In the third quarter of 2018 the number of soldiers and police deployed
across the war-torn country fell to 312,328 — nearly 9,000 fewer than just
one year ago, and the lowest level for any comparable period since 2012, a US
watchdog said in October.
Reasons for attrition included fatalities, and soldiers going AWOL or
declining to re-enlist, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan
Reconstruction (SIGAR) said, citing the US defence department.
Beg is one who has no intention of going back.
“There have been days when I have lost five to 10 colleagues in fighting,”
said the 26-year-old, who is based in the northern province of Jowzjan. As
with other military sources in this story, AFP is using only his surname to
protect his identity.
“I have survived two Taliban sieges of our unit and God helped me escape,”
he continued.
MORE/MR/ 1030 hrs
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“I will not re-enlist. I will go and do labour work if I survive.”
It’s an increasingly big “if”, as the number of security forces killed in
action appears to be accelerating. Estimated figures for 2015 show 5,000
killed that year, with the remainder of the 28,529 casualties revealed by
President Ghani dying since then.
Casualty figures for Afghan forces have been kept under wraps since 2017 at
the request of Kabul, but NATO’s Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan
recently told SIGAR that this summer’s toll was worse than ever.
That would come as no surprise to Ashiqullah, a police officer in the
eastern province of Nangarhar, an IS stronghold that also has a heavy Taliban
presence.
“Every day we are seeing our comrades being killed,” Ashiqullah, 24, said.
“We don’t have proper equipment and most of our friends have been killed or
quit the service.”
– No choice but to fight –
The growing number of dead and wounded has made it harder to recruit police
in some areas, interior ministry recruitment chief Mohammad Daud admitted. A
police recruitment centre in the northern province of Balkh has seen a near
80 percent drop in the number of recruits this year, an official told AFP on
the condition of anonymity.
But a centre in the Nangarhar provincial capital of Jalalabad said the
number of people registering to fight remained high.
Defence ministry spokesman Jawed Ahmad Ghafor said the number of people
signing up to the army “has not decreased at all”.
Fazlullah, 24, said it had been his dream “to protect and defend my
country”, as he signed up in Nangarhar.
“I am not joining the police force to have a peaceful life,” he said.
“I go to sacrifice myself for my country.”
Others say that in a country with rampant unemployment, they have no other
options if they want to support their families.
“I joined the security forces… to provide food and a salary for my
family,” said Sapai, 27, a soldier in Nangarhar.
Salman, 27, a police officer in the northwestern province of Faryab, said
he had not been paid in three months and air support during attacks by the
Taliban “were not effective”.
“But we don’t have any choice except to keep fighting,” he said.
– ‘Never rejoin’ –
The bleak figures come as the Taliban intensify attacks on Afghan forces,
scoring significant battlefield wins and maintaining control or influence
over swathes of the countryside.
Afghan and US forces say the militants are suffering heavy casualties too.
But the losses do not appear to have eroded their desire to fight, even as
international efforts to engage them in peace talks gather pace.
“They attack us every night,” said Enayatullah, a 29-year-old police
officer in the southeastern province of Ghazni, who has been wounded twice by
landmines.
“My service in the police will finish in a few days and I will never
rejoin.”
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1030 hrs