Confusion over terms of Afghan police training mission – again

The 10-week course of lessons which Dutch police officers are
giving to Afghan police may in practice last as little as eight hours, the Volkskrant reports on Tuesday.


Local officials want the entire local force to take part in the training programme and has allocated two mornings per police officer, the paper says. Ten local police officers had lessons on Monday.
The Dutch parliament only gave approval for the police training mission on the grounds that it be ‘substantial’ and defence minister Hans Hillen assured MPs earlier this year that after a basic training period, trainers would then give ‘a 10-week additional’ programme.
Unmanned
But the local force head of training Sediq Khan has decided 200 officers should take part instead – with a new group every day. This means the Taliban would not know which police posts are being left unmanned, the paper said.
A 10-week course for all police officers in Kunduz would take 10 years to complete, Khan points out.
A spokesman for the defence ministry said it is up to the Afghans how the training is divided up, but ultimately everyone should go through a 420 hour course, he said. Lessons at base camp could, for example, be supplemented by lessons at the police posts themselves.

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