KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — It will be at least 10 years before Afghan troops can handle national security without help from Canadians and other foreign soldiers, says a top military trainer here.

British Col. Paul Farrar, deputy commander of the international assistance wing of the Kabul Military Training Centre, says the four-year-old Afghan National Army is making real but painfully slow progress.

"It's superficial,'' he said in a candid interview. "It's wafer thin -- that's the way I describe it. But it's better than it was last year and the year before that.

"It's really been struggling on to its feet, and it's probably not even now fully on them. But there is potential.''

His assessment isn't exactly good news for countries, including Canada, who pin their exit strategies from Afghanistan on the ultimate hand-over of security duties.

The challenges are monumental. American, British, Canadian and French soldiers are helping to build a modern force almost from scratch after the Taliban's iron-fist rule. Comparison with Western military standards is simply unfair, they say.

Most Afghan recruits can't read, write or add; some officers left over from the vestiges of a class-based army system think they're entitled to a job; and the rate at which soldiers desert, go absent without leave or decline to renew their three-year, volunteer contracts hovers between 20 and 50 per cent, depending on circumstances.

Afghans clearly have a mind of their own.

"One thing we've learned is they don't work on time,'' says Canadian Warrant Officer Todd Hunt. "They show up when they show up.''

At 7 o'clock on a Saturday morning, Hunt was searching in vain for a very late sergeant major and doing his best to herd cats.

"I have work to do. You have work to do. You have to disperse,'' he told a crowd of trainees that was more interested in a couple of foreign visitors than in preparing for live-fire exercises.

After almost 15 weeks of basic and advanced training, their marching skills weren't much better. Their AK-47s slung in all directions as they stepped to no particular rhythm despite the occasional shriek from a drill sergeant.

About 31,000 Afghan soldiers have so far come through the training centre, but the army's total fighting strength is only about 18,000, Farrar says. The ultimate goal is an Afghan National Army of 70,000.

After just 16 weeks in class and in field drills, many Afghan recruits are deployed.

By comparison, a Canadian soldier wouldn't be sent on a mission without at least four to six months of training.

Still, desperately needed Afghan troops fighting in the field alongside NATO soldiers have proven to be a valuable asset, Farrar says.

Retention problems have been acknowledged through pay raises and more chance for promotion.

Salaries for the lowest-ranking troops have now been increased to the equivalent of C$110 from C$78 a month, and benefits improved. There are also plans to rotate the best soldiers from combat in southern Afghanistan's hot insurgent zones, back to Kabul for training or teaching breaks. Burn-out became a growing issue in recent months amid fierce anti-government guerrilla attacks.

Afghan soldiers also go missing for days just trying to get money back to their remote villages. There is no reliable national banking system.

At the Kabul training centre, Afghan recruits and officer candidates gather for classes in an aging complex of 1950s buildings, some of which were bombed to rubble as the Americans chased the Taliban from Kabul in 2001.

Farrar, who has helped train foreign armies from Sierra Leone to Belize over a 32-year career, says Afghans are fighting diamonds in the rough. From the Soviet invasion, to a devastating civil war followed by anti-Taliban uprisings, warfare has steeped Afghan culture for more than 25 years.

"They're quick on their feet,'' Farrar says. "And they're quite hardy and enduring. "The basic material is as good as I've seen anywhere in the world.''

Ashiqullah Abdul Sallam, 23, signed up because he wants to help build a country that can at last enjoy peace, said the married father of a two-year-old boy.

"It's my hope that Afghanistan will be secure and my son educated.''