Kabul - Afghan Interior Minister Mohmmad Hanif Atmar announced Sunday that his country will recruit and train 15,000 additional police forces by this summer to help provide security for presidential elections set to take place in August. Some 30 international donors have recently agreed in a meeting to fund the training and equipping of the new additional police forces, Atmar told a press conference.
Atmar said the country needed to double the size of the current 82,000 police forces, but emphasized that the full scope of the extra forces would be announced after a thorough study of Afghanistan's needs in June.
He said the "strategic increase" would reduce his country's dependence on international troops to provide security for the war- torn country. Currently more than 70,000 foreign soldiers deployed from 42 nations are stationed in Afghanistan.
The US has announced the deployment of 17,000 additional combat troops and 4,000 military trainers and advisors to be sent to Afghanistan before the president election slated for August 20. Several other NATO countries would also send 5,000 more troops to Afghanistan by the summer.
Compared to the Afghan national army of 85,000 troops, the police forces are more poorly trained and equipped, factors making them a prime target for Taliban-led attacks.
As a reminder of police forces' vulnerability, five policemen were killed when their post was attacked by Taliban militants in western Farah province on Saturday night. More than 2,300 police were killed in rebel attacks in 2007 and 2008.
Meanwhile, Afghan Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said in a separate press conference on Sunday that the combined Afghan and international forces faced a "challenging year in 2009."
"Traditionally the enemies intensify their attack in this time of the year," Wardak said, referring to spring and summer seasons, adding, "But we in close collaboration with our international partners will try to pre-empt their spring offensive."
Taliban militants, who have steadily gained power in the past three years following their ouster in late 2001, have vowed to increase their attacks on Afghan and NATO troops as the weather warns in the country.
"2009 is going to be a year with definite challenges in our mission," NATO's top commander in the country, US General David McKiernan told the same press conference. But he insisted that with new extra troops, they were in better position to take the war to Taliban-led insurgents.
