Afghan national Army After the removal of the Taliban

The Afghan National Army (ANA) is a service branch of the military of Afghanistan, which is currently trained by the coalition forces to ultimately take the role in land-based military operations in Afghanistan. As of January 2011, the Afghan National Army is divided into seven regional Corps and consists of around 150,000 active troops. The Afghan Ministry of Defense is expanding the ANA to about 260,000 troops by 2014, a move supported and funded primarily by the United States Department of Defense. There were more than 4,000 American military trainers in late 2009 and additional numbers from other NATO states, providing advanced warfare training to the ANA.

Afghanistan's army was first organized in 1880 with British support, during Emir Abdur Rahman Khan's reign. Prior to 1880, the national army was composed of private militia forces belonging to different regional commanders, as well as a special army force under the ruler of the country.^] During World War I and World War II, the Afghan army was supplied by Germany but Afghanistan remained a neutral state. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, the army of Afghanistan was trained and equipped by the Soviet Union. By 1992, the national army fragmented into regional militias under local warlords. This was followed by the Taliban government in the mid 1990s, which had their own militia-style forces.

After the removal of the Taliban in late 2001, the new Afghan National Army was created with support from NATO, mainly the United States. Since 2002, billions of dollars worth of military equipment, facilities, and other forms of aid has been provided to the ANA. Most of the weapons arrived from the United States, which included Humvees, M-16 assault rifles, body armored jackets as well as other types of vehicles and military equipment. It also included the building of a national military command center, with training compounds in different parts of the country.To thwart and dissolve anti-government militant groups, the Karzai administration has offered cash and vocational training to encourage members to join the ANA.