Kandahar's sitting ducks

Much of the day-to-day security in Kandahar falls on the shoulders of Afghanistan's police force.

The government has just announced that it will send a thousand more officers to help drive out the Taliban from the southern province by August.

As Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, seeks help in tackling the Taliban, it is the police in Afghanistan that are bearing the brunt of the casualties, with an average of six officers getting killed each day.

Stanley McChrystal, the US general commanding Nato forces, has called for an increase in the number of Afghan police recruits from 84,000 to 160,000.

Brigadier-General Anne Macdonald, the deputy commanding general for police development at the Nato training mission in Kabul, told Al Jazeera: "We have a very challenging mission to ensure that police are trained and that they understand what their roles and responsibilities are."

But as Al Jazeera's David Chater found out, the job of the Afghan police is being made more difficult by a shortage of equipment and resources.

Taliban fighters have increased their attacks against force, who are often dangerously ill-equipped, under-resourced and poorly trained.

Little wonder why more than 1,000 police officers died in attacks last year alone.