By Police1 Staff
MAIDAN SHAR, Afghanistan — Insurgents blew apart a police training center in Afghanistan that a US-led coalition spent $106 million building. The center was Afghanistan’s largest, and the explosion occurred yesterday during the inauguration of the facility, according to the Associated Press.
Police recruits panicked as Afghanistan’s government officials who were attending the center’s unveiling fled to helicopters to escape the destructive scene.
Though the bomb caused considerable alarm for everyone present, no injuries have been reported. The attack, however, is just anothe reminder of the many obstacles standing between the United States, Afghanistan and attempts at creating an effective police force there. NATO is in charge of the center’s training mission for new officers.
“We’re dealing with a lost generation,” said US Major General James Mallory, who oversees the NATO project. His recruits are almost entirely illiterate and must live with the looming threat of Taliban attacks.
Yesterday, the violence was not limited to the police training center as two separate suicide attacks -- on the Pakistani border and at the governor’s office in the northeast -- also rattled the country’s volatile landscape.
Colonel Abdul Khalil said the lack of education is to blame for officers shirking responsibilities or abandoning their posts.
“They don’t know what they want,’’ Khalil said. “They don’t know how to overcome the challenges.”