Steve Rennie, THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA - As many as one of every five soldiers in the Afghan National Army leaves the fledgling fighting force, which Canada hopes will eventually take the lead in the war-ravaged country, say newly released documents.
Defence Department documents prepared in May 2007 say between 10 and 20 per cent of Afghans who go through military training end up leaving the army.
The documents, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, note dropout rates are seasonal, with more soldiers typically leaving in the winter.
Afghan soldiers' absenteeism is often described as temporary, as they return to other parts of the country for an extended break or to bring money home to their families.
"In general the current attrition rate of the Afghan National Army (ANA) is 10-20 per cent," says one document.
"This number varies seasonally being higher in the winter. Often this absenteeism is temporary as members return to other parts of the country for an extended break or to bring money home to their families."
The role of Canadian soldiers is increasingly shifting to one of support to the Afghan National Army, which has planned and executed its own successful operations against militants.
That's led to a levelling off in the number of Canadian casualties in recent months. It's also made the Afghan mission more palatable to those troubled by the rising death toll.
Eighty-five Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have been killed in Afghanistan since 2002.
Steven Staples, president of the Rideau Institute, said the dropout rate should concern Canada and its NATO allies.
"We've staked our entire strategy on turning the Afghan National Army into a force that's capable of defeating the Taliban and other insurgents," he said.
The Defence Department's website says the Canadian military mentors five Afghan army battalions, or kandaks, each comprising up to 650 soldiers, through its Operational Mentoring and Liaison Teams.
The Afghan army presence in the volatile Kandahar province has almost tripled since Canadians began working alongside its soldiers in 2006. There are now two full kandaks in operation, plus a third that the military says is well on its way.
Canada's new Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Walter Natynczyk, said this week there has been "huge progress with the Afghan army," although he concedes there's still work to be done.
In May, a spokesman for Afghanistan's defence ministry put the strength of the Afghan army at 76,665 soldiers and officers. Afghan officials estimate that up to 200,000 troops are needed to secure the country from a stubborn insurgency.
Defence analysts say Canadian soldiers could be in Afghanistan longer than the expected 2011 pull-out date if dropout rates run too high.
"We rely a lot more on the Afghan military in Kandahar province to implement the mission," said Alain Pellerin, executive director of the Canadian Conference of Defence Associations.
"If you've got more boots on the ground, you can do that better and faster and with more realism. But if the Afghan army loses a lot of soldiers because of attrition, it just slows the process."
No one from the Defence Department was immediately available for comment.
It's not known precisely how the Afghan dropout rate compares with that of the Canadian Forces. Brian MacDonald, a retired artillery colonel and a senior analyst for the Conference of Defence Associations, says Canada's attrition rate tends to be between five and eight per cent.
Canada has about 2,500 of its own troops in Afghanistan, most of them in Kandahar province.
© The Canadian Press, 2008
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