CTV News reports that the trainers that the Harper government has promised to keep in Afghanistan following the end of Canada’s combat mission are not likely to be mainly in Kabul, despite the government’s earlier promises (“Canadian trainers likely to be sent across Afghanistan,” CTV News, 31 December 2010):

The Canadian Forces is rushing to draw up a list of military trainers to send to Afghanistan once Canada’s combat mission ends next summer, but senior officers say training positions in the safer regions of the country are already growing few and far between….

The Conservative government insisted that the Canadian trainers would be based “inside the wire,” working in secure bases in the relatively stable area around Kabul, the Afghan capital.

But the NATO training organization in Afghanistan is expanding rapidly and needs trainers at sites across the country.

Many of the training jobs in Kabul have been snapped up by nations who committed to the training mission much earlier and Canada may have to send its soldiers into riskier regions of the country.

Maj.-Gen. Stuart Beare, the Canadian deputy commander of the NATO training mission, told CTV News that the coalition needs military and police trainers in almost every province of Afghanistan.

“At the end of the day, the NATO requirements are for trainers across the whole of the country,” he said.

Also worth reading, a Mountie’s perspective on police training in Afghanistan (Susan Sachs, “A gloomy observation on Afghan training,” Globe and Mail, 31 December 2010).

DND photo