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Afghanistan (Force Levels)

There is a problem with the retention of soldiers in the Afghan army and a challenge regarding equipment. However, my hon. Friend must realise how young the force actually is. For the assessment of the force as it is built up and progresses, I rely on those who know and understand all these things, and they tell me that the Afghan soldiers are enormously brave and capable. Given that the army has been in existence for a comparatively short time, it attracts the admiration of the British forces. Of course, there are significant challenges. However, I am sure that my hon. Friend will applaud the announcement by the United States of America of significant investment for the development of the Afghan security forces. However, that does not mean that there will not be setbacks to the development. As I said earlier, there is a growing realisation throughout the alliance that we will have a better prospect of developing and sustaining the Afghan security forces if we let them grow more organically from the communities with which they are involved, rather than recruiting all the members from the north and thus deploying people in the south who are ethnically different from those whom they are policing, which has been the tendency in the past.