More than 150 Afghans sent to the U.S. for military training have gone AWOL.

State Department calls rate ‘unacceptably high’

WASHINGTON — At least 152 Afghans sent to the United States for military training during the course of the war against the Taliban have gone AWOL, and the problem, which worsened last year, is unlikely to improve soon, U.S. inspectors said Friday.

AWOL Afghans are considered a security risk in the U.S. because they have military training and are of fighting age, and relatively few are ever arrested or detained, according to a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

The relatively high AWOL rate among Afghan trainees, particularly since 2015, also has undermined the combat readiness and morale of Afghan military and police units, the report said.

Nearly all the Afghans who fled since 2005 were officers. Most were what the military calls “company grade” officers, meaning they were at the rank of lieutenant or captain.

The Afghans have fled from posts across America, including Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, where they are required to take English-language training; Fort Rucker, Alabama; Fort Benning, Georgia; Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

The report cited numerous bureaucratic impediments to catching AWOL Afghans. They are required to provide limited biographical and background information while in the U.S., which can make it difficult to track them down, it said. Also, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents cannot take any action to locate a missing Afghan trainee until the departments of Defense and State take certain actions to revoke the individual’s official status.

Most training is done in Afghanistan, but selected Afghans are brought to the U.S. each year for training and education opportunities that cannot be offered in their home country, the report said. The AWOL problem is one of many that have dogged the U.S. effort to make the Afghan military capable of defending itself. As of July, the U.S. has spent $68 billion to train and equip the Afghan army, air force, commandos and other security forces.

The report reviewed data only through March of this year. But in asserting that the problem remains of concern, inspectors noted that the State Department reported that four AWOL Afghan trainees were caught by Customs and Border Protection in Washington state in August.

“Far more Afghan trainees have gone AWOL in the United States than trainees from any other nation, and the likelihood of Afghan trainees to go AWOL has increased in recent years as the security situation in Afghanistan has continued to deteriorate,” the report said.

In response, the State Department told the inspectors the number of AWOL cases was “unacceptably high.”

Investigators’ interviews with Afghans currently in the U.S. for training and with some who were granted asylum after going AWOL in previous years show that they feared for the safety of their families after receiving threats from the Taliban.

The report said that as of March 7, 13 of the 152 who had gone absent without leave since 2005 were still at large. Seventy had fled the United States; 39 gained legal status in the U.S.; and 27 were arrested, removed or in the process of being removed from the U.S. Three no longer were AWOL or returned to their training base in the U.S.