The Times
Jerome Starkey in Kabul

It is the $120-a-month job that is crucial to any Allied exit strategy from Afghanistan but at the moment a career in the police force is only for the desperate.

American efforts to expand Afghanistan’s security forces are faltering, leaving the largest training centre in the country operating at only 25 per cent capacity.

Recruitment has been low in recent months amid rising Taleban violence and political instability after the unresolved election. Thousands of men are leaving the force every month, with about one police officer in three resigning over the course of a year, The Times learnt. Some have joined the Taleban.

“We simply can’t recruit enough police,” General Khudadad Agha, the officer in charge of training, said. “The salary is low and the job is very dangerous. If someone wants $120 (£72) a month then they join up. But 95 per cent of the new recruits are uneducated, unskilled and they can’t find food. That’s why they join the police.” (Read more).