A man with Afghan National Army (ANA) uniform wounded five foreign soldiers. The alleged Afghan soldier attacked foreign forces at a NATO base in Maidan Wardak province of Afghanistan. According to tallies from different news agencies and other institutions, more than 20 foreign soldiers have been killed by their Afghan counterparts this year.

This happens while international community is pulling out the troops from Afghanistan and transitioning security responsibility to Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). But there has been a trust deficit between ANSF and foreign troops. There has been a growing concern about the infiltration of pro-Taliban individuals into ANSF, which include mainly national army and national police. The Taliban militants usually make a claim that they have their people among ANSF, though it could be a sort of psychological warfare.

The problem is that the Taliban are being appeased in different fashions. But unfortunately they really do not relinquish their violent ideology and try to harm others. Under a new concept called Security Force Assistance (SFA), more than 300 coalition teams, comprising thousands of specially trained advisors are supposed to help ANSF. International community has adopted the policy of relying on ANSF but unfortunately ANSF is yet to gain the capability and skills, and be equipped sufficiently to tackle the security challenges posed by the Taliban/insurgent groups and other terrorists.

In the meanwhile, there are other problems as well, which are more serious. The leadership of the country has not provided enough justification for ANSF to eliminate the forces of evil. The leadership tends towards the Taliban by calling them unhappy brothers. This affects the morale of ANSF to crack down on the militants that continue to kill Afghan people, destroy roads and bridges, burn schools and disrupt lives.

If the process of training ANSF faces problems, and ANSF does not gain the required capability and skills to keep the so-called enemies of peace and stability at bay after the full withdrawal of international forces, Afghan government could collapse. Especially, if President Karzai continues its pro-Taliban policies, which will, definitely, lead to further fragmentation of ANSF. Such a scenario will be extremely treacherous and must be avoided.