Many obstacles remain before that would be possible but an eventual pullout would place the Afghan defense forces under even more pressure. President Ashraf Ghani said in Switzerland last week 45,000 members of the Afghan security forces had been killed since he took office in 2014, a figure analysts said helped explain morale problems. “That number indicates that in those roughly 53 months, around 849 Afghan security personnel have been killed per month on average,” SIGAR said. SIGAR also released figures suggesting the recruitment and retention of women in the national defense and security forces was a significant challenge. Citing information declassified by US Forces-Afghanistan, SIGAR said Afghan forces had 4,735 female personnel - less than 2 per cent of current assigned strength.

Source: bd News24 January 31, 2019 06:22 UTC