Afghanistan to boost police force

Afghanistan plans to recruit and train 15,000 new police officers in time for the country's presidential election in August, the interior minister says.Hanif Atmar said the Afghan authorities had asked international donors to approve a "strategic increase" in the size of the force.The full scope of the increase would be announced in June, he said.While the increase was temporary, he said, officials were studying how much bigger the force should be permanently.The country's police force currently has around 82,000 staff."Our request was a strategic increase of the numbers of the police in Afghanistan, and two: an interim increase until we are able to basically implement the strategic increase," Reuters quoted the minister as saying."Initially we thought that the Afghanistan police size needs to be doubled in order to meet the requirements," he said."We will have to do a deeper study to establish and determine the needs, and the response to the needs."Last month US President Barack Obama announced a US review of strategy in the region.He proposed a big spending programme on infrastructure projects, and said 4,000 extra troops would be sent to Afghanistan to train security forces.