Afghanistan army to double number of special forces to fight Taliban fighters

Defense officials revealed on Monday that the Afghan army has started making efforts to double the number of its special forces, as the country still struggles to fend off ever-increasing Taliban insurgents.

Gen. Mohammad Radmanish on Monday said: “the defence ministry will soon start increasing special forces units “so we have a competent unit fighting terrorism.”

Radmanish said he cannot reveal the exact number of the current special forces, but the process will start this year and will go on until 2020.

Sources within NATO say Afghan special forces make up about seven per cent of all troops, but carry out almost 40 per cent of the fighting across Afghanistan.

Trained by international advisors, special forces units have been the only outfits to successfully fight and push back the insurgents.

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The Afghan security forces have lost police officers and soldiers on a massive scale over the past years. In 2016 alone, over 6,000 were killed and another 11,777 injured, more than double as much as all international troops lost in Afghanistan in the past 15 years.

As revealed by U.S. military sources, the Afghan government currently controls around 60 per cent of the country, and the next spring offensive of the Taliban is about to commence.

According to Radmanish, the funds for the increase in troops will come from the 5 billion dollars allocated annually for Afghan security forces.