U.S. Army Brig. Gen. John W. Charlton, speaks with Afghan National Army Lt. Col. Malikidin, March 25, at Forward Operation Base Shank. (Photo by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Juan Delgado, Task Force Red Devils Public Affairs)
Over 150 Afghan soldiers brought to America for training have gone rogue in the last few years, with 83 of them still on the loose. These are men with military training, roaming the streets. Some of them are considered “high risk” by the government. How could this happen? Kelley Beaucar Vlahos writes at The American Conservative:
According to the latest SIGAR offering, half of the international troops who have gone AWOL since 2005 were Afghans, and because of that, the U.S. has reduced the number of programs it is offering stateside for them. In 2015, the U.S. spent $34.5 billion in equipment, services, and training on foreign troops visiting from 119 countries (not including NATO members). The number of Afghans who were able to take advantage of several programs, from counter-terrorism to aviation leadership, dropped dramatically from 1,190 in 2015 to 270 in 2016 (numbers do not necessarily reflect individuals because some of them engage in more than one of the nine programs offered by the government per year).
Read more here.
