Join the Afghanistan police for your three-weeks' quick-fix training and 10% chance of getting killed

Gordon Brown says recruiting tens of thousands of Afghan police and soldiers is the strategy for withdrawing British troops from Afghanistan. What's in it for the Afghan recruits?

International efforts to rapidly enlarge Afghanistan's national police force are being undermined by "spiralling increases" in deaths and the growing use of "quick fix" training courses that give recruits as little as three weeks to prepare for fights with the Taliban, two highly critical reports have warned.

The documents, for different arms of the European Union mission in Afghanistan, warn that the soaring death rate among the country's poorly trained and equipped police is deterring fresh recruits from coming forward and prompting many experienced officers to quit.

Building up a large and effective force capable of keeping insurgents out of villages is seen as essential to quelling the Taliban insurgency. In a document leaked last month the US general commanding Nato forces, Stanley McChrystal, called for an increase in police numbers to 160,000 from the current 82,000. A European commission report recommends 136,000.

But according to an official report signed by the European Union's special representative in Afghanistan, Ettore Sequi, recruitment and retention has been badly hit by a high casualty rate caused by police being used as "light infantry in counter-insurgency operations". According to the Ministry of the Interior, 1,290 policemen were killed last year and 2,393 wounded – 4.5% of the official total.

But Sequi, in a note to the EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, warned that the percentage of policemen killed could be more than double that because the official number of police is grossly inflated by staff who only exist on paper for the benefit of corrupt officials who collect their salaries. The so-called "shadow police" problem means that the proportion of officers killed "might be rather closer to 10%", Sequi warns.

Sitting ducks

While the Afghan National Army, which suffers far lower death rates, enjoys extensive support from Nato troops and air power during operations, the police are often left at fixed locations such as checkpoints, "rendering them 'sitting ducks' for insurgent attacks".

An independent survey commissioned by the European commission estimated the attrition rate to be 24%. It warned that rapidly speeded-up recruitment efforts – which it describes as "absolute irresponsible downgrading" – were eroding police professionalism. "Our view is that the spiralling increase in police deaths and wounding will further increase with quick-fix recruiting, poor training and equipping," said the report, written by two international police experts and one long-serving UN diplomat in Afghanistan.

Making matters worse, with most deaths occurring in dangerous southern provinces such as Helmand and Kandahar, recruiters are dropping their vetting standards to find replacements quickly, making it easier for insurgents to infiltrate police ranks.

The rush to recruit nearly 5,000 extra police for Kabul and a further 10,000 for 14 "vulnerable provinces" in the run-up to last month's presidential election led to patrolmen receiving only three weeks' basic "survival skills" training, with no lessons on the law, before being deployed, the commission's report says.

Both reports cast doubts over the Focused District Development programme – a US strategy to greatly increase the number of competent police officers with eight-week crash courses.

The report to Solana said that the programme focused too much on producing paramilitary-style police capable of fighting insurgents, rather than tackling perceptions that "the police are widely involved in (organised as well as opportunistic) criminal activity". The independent expert report said it was "barely conceivable how eight weeks' let alone three weeks' training can adequately bring any form of security other than cosmetic."