Combating attrition among elite Afghan police

ANCOP personnel move around the country and are put in combat, making their attrition rate high.

NATO Training Mission Afghanistan

The Afghan government has approved an extra $50 per month for the elite Afghan National Civil Order Police in an attempt to reduce attrition, said Col. John Ferrari, of NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan.

Known by its acronym ANCOP, the civil order police move around the country to serve in districts until a local police force is recruited and trained. Despite being touted as the best of the best, ANCOP personnel reportedly suffer from the same problems of corruption and drug abuse as local Afghan cops.

ANCOP attrition varies widely per month. It was 11.2 percent in December and 2.3 percent in June, according to NATO Training Mission Afghanistan / Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan.

But the attrition rate is still too high, hence the extra pay, Ferrari said at a bloggers roundtable on Thursday.

“They get moved around the country so much that essentially we overwork them, and so they have the high attrition rate,” Ferrari said.

The salary for enlisted civil order police without the incentive ranges between $210 and $415 per month based on rank and time in service, according to the training command. Officers make between $275 and $635 per month without the incentive.

Civil order police started receiving the extra pay a few days ago, and coalition troops are now partnering with them to further reduce attrition, he said.

The unit now in Marjah trained with Special Forces before its deployment, Ferrari said. The Special Forces troops escorted the ANCOP unit to Marjah and handed them over to Marines, who are manning checkpoints with them.

“What that does is it injects a degree of confidence into units that are brand new and untested by battle, and so when they see coalition forces standing there beside them, they are more likely to stay there also and not attrit,” he said.

In another move, ANCOP units will receive a welcome home ceremony, medals and block leave to see their families when they finish a deployment, he said.

“In the Afghan culture, the family is a very important part of their lives, and when they leave their families for an excessive amount of time, that brings morale down, and so we give them the predictability to see their families, come back, and that will hopefully reduce ANCOP attrition,”

Ferrari said. In other news, the Afghan National Army and National Police may reach their recruiting goals for the year in August, months ahead of schedule, Ferrari said.The army and police are slated to reach 134,000 and 109,000 respectively by the end of October, but they are currently at 130,000 and 105,000 now. However,

Ferrari cautioned that summer is typically a slow time for recruiting.

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