KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - At a time when every experienced Afghan soldier on the ground in Kandahar is worth his weight in gold, many of them are now leaving in droves over something as simple as a pay dispute.
There are about 2,600 Afghan soldiers at work in Kandahar province, braving daily skirmishes with the Taliban and the ever-present dangers of improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers -- many of them having left friends and families behind in northern Afghanistan.
Now, because there's no longer a financial premium for working in the volatile southern provinces, many of them are migrating back to the comparatively safer northern territories, to the consternation of Canada's Operational Mentor Liason Team, which co-ordinates their training.
"Part of the problem is they used to get an incentive for working here in the south, and they've blanketed the incentive," OMLT commanding officer Col. Gregory Burt said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
"In other words, a guy doing guard duty in Kabul gets the same incentive as the guy getting shot at every day down here in the south."
Burt, who is wrapping up his tour to Afghanistan, said he started looking into the matter a couple of months ago when he noticed many of the Afghan soldiers were either not renewing their military contracts or choosing instead to go AWOL -- absent without leave.
Or so he thought at first.
"They've gone AWOL from here, but they're signing up in the north and getting in again, and are getting the same (pay)," said an exasperated Burt.
"Or, there are guys finishing the three-year contract who go up to the north and get back in."
Many departing soldiers don't even turn in their uniforms, because they plan on wearing them up north, he added.
There are roughly 80,000 Afghans serving in the Afghan National Army; the average Afghan soldier makes about US$200 per month -- a significant improvement over pay rates just a few years ago. Those soldiers deployed in Kandahar used to get an undisclosed premium -- "enough to make a difference," Burt said -- to create an incentive for the tougher assignment.
Now, all the soldiers receive the same salary.
"It was being down south and getting danger pay, plus it was in a way isolation pay for being away from their family," he said. "So, if you get the same thing working near your family, where are you going to go?"
It's a serious problem, said Burt, adding it could affect as many as 20 per cent of the Afghan soldiers serving in Kandahar. New recruits are always coming in, he said, but that still represents a loss of valuable experience.
With the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Fitr having just recently ended, a new appraisal of the ANA ranks will be necessary to determine how many soldiers will be coming back.
"Right now it's hard to say exactly because Eid is over, but you have to give them another 10 days," Burt said.
"We can't get excited until the 2nd or 3rd of October -- then we check the numbers."
