Dozens of Afghan soldiers have gone AWOL in the U.S.

By Dan Lamothe

The Washington Post

Forty-five Afghan soldiers have disappeared in the United States during training on U.S. military installations in the past two years, Pentagon officials said Thursday, exposing a hole in security as many presumably stay in the country illegally and avoid returning to their military assignments.

Twenty-five were reported absent without leave (AWOL) in 2015, and another 20 have disappeared this year, said Navy Cmdr. Patrick Evans, a Pentagon spokesman. Others have disappeared before, however, including 17 soldiers reported missing from English-language training at Lackland Air Force in Texas between 2006 and 2010. Since 2007, the United States has trained 2,207 Afghans in U.S.-based programs, Evans said.

Evans said the Pentagon is “assessing ways to strengthen eligibility criteria for training in ways that will reduce the likelihood of an individual Afghan willingly absconding from training in the U.S. and going AWOL.”

The figures, first reported Thursday by Reuters, add a new wrinkle to the U.S. plan to train Afghan forces to take control of security in their own country. The disappearance of Afghan soldiers in the United States has previously been disclosed, but most reports focus on individual cases. Last month, the Pentagon disclosed that seven Afghan troops recently disappeared from five locations: Little Rock, Ark; Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.; Fort Lee, Va.; and Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in Georgia.

The disappearances also come as the Afghan military and police continue to face significant problems of attrition in Afghanistan. Thousands of soldiers and police officers are believed to desert each year, frustrated by everything from the Afghan government not paying them in time to the violence they face from the Taliban and other insurgent groups.

Afghan troops have been included in a variety of training programs in the United States. Pilots, for example, receive instruction how to fly the A-29 Super Tucano aircraft at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. A handful of Afghan officers also have gone through the Army’s grueling Ranger School, and Afghan troops regularly receive English-language training through the Defense Department in the United States.

Before coming to the United States, Afghan trainees are screened to ensure they are not affiliated with any known terrorist or insurgent groups, and must complete apply for and receive a U.S. visa. They also must first go through vetting required by the so-called Leahy Law, Evans said.

First introduced in 1997 by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D.-Vt., the law calls for the U.S. government to avoid providing training to individuals who have a history of human-rights abuses.

“If at any time they fail one of these steps, they are ineligible to go to this training or any future U.S.-funded training,” Evans said.

Pentagon officials said Thursday they were researching the total list of locations from which Afghan soldiers have gone AWOL in the United States. The Defense Department referred questions about the current status or whereabouts of the 45 who have gone AWOL to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In one case last year, three Afghan officers who were on Cape Cod in Massachusetts for a training exercise disappeared and were stopped at the border trying to cross into Canada. The Boston Globe reported that at least one of them eventually received political asylum in the United States after arguing that deportation to Afghanistan would be akin to a death sentence.