Afghans Build Security, and Hope to Avoid Infiltrators

By RAY RIVERA
NYT

KABUL, Afghanistan — For someone who had once joined an insurgent group, and whose family was tied to a top Taliban commander, Akmal had a strikingly easy path into the Afghan National Army.

The district governor who approved his paperwork had never met him. A village elder who was supposed to vouch for him — as required by recruiting mandates — did little more than verify his identity.

No red flags went up when, after just six weeks in the army, he deserted. He returned more than three months later with the skimpiest of explanations and was allowed to rejoin. “I told them I got sick,” Akmal recalled.

Now Akmal, 18, who like many Afghans goes by one name, could face the death penalty for his admitted part in a suicide bombing on May 22 that killed six people on the grounds of the Afghan national military hospital.

(More here.)