An Afghan instructor directs a police student shooting with life ammunition at the Police academy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghanistan's security forces managed to hold their own against the Taliban in pitched battles this summer, but U.S and NATO officials said the fledgling army and police are not ready yet to sustain a long and drawn out war against a resilient insurgency that shows no signs of giving up after 12 years of fighting. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (AP) -- The Taliban failed to capture any ground from Afghan security forces fighting for the first time without foreign firepower this fighting season, U.S officials say, but the insurgents killed scores of soldiers, police and civilians in their campaign to weaken the government.

American and NATO officials say the fledgling army and police aren't ready to wage a sustained war against a determined insurgency.

Coming just 13 months before most foreign forces are to withdraw, the mixed results reported by U.S military officials underline the unresolved question of whether some of those forces should stay.

The assessment adds urgency to the need for the U.S and Afghanistan to sign a much-delayed security agreement that will allow a residual foreign force to stay on after the Dec. 31, 2014 withdrawal deadline.

The U.S says the one issue still to be decided is which courts - U.S or Afghan - will prosecute crimes committed by American forces stationed here. Washington is expected to keep about 10,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014, provided the security agreement is signed and includes immunity from prosecution by Afghan courts.

NATO allies would provide about 5,000 troops, but only if an American presence remains. Billions of dollars in funds for Afghan forces and development also would be jeopardized if no deal is reached.

The 350,000-strong Afghan National Security Forces, made up mostly of the army and police, assumed responsibility for security in June, freeing the foreign forces to focus on training. In so doing, it took the lead against an insurgency that had promised to recapture territory it has lost in the 12 years since the U.S.-led invasion.

"Our efforts to date have enabled Afghans to assume the lead, take the fight to the enemy, and secure the population," Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the top U.S and coalition commander in Afghanistan, said in his fall update to the troops. "But our progress is not yet sustainable."

Holding territory came at a high price. Coalition officials say Afghan forces were at one point losing 100 men a week, mostly from roadside bombs.

The Afghans' weakness, say military officials, is logistics - they have trouble with the upkeep of vehicles and other crucial equipment supplied by the West.

U.S Maj. Gen. James C. McConville, who commands coalition troops in the volatile east near the Pakistani border, said Afghan forces there managed to hold territory as coalition forces began withdrawing in earnest.

Since March, he has closed 54 bases in the east, leaving just 11, plus a coalition presence at six Afghan facilities. Coalition force levels have dropped from about 18,000 to less than 7,500 - nearly all tasked with training.

That reflects the situation around the country; there are about 87,000 coalition troops, 50,000 of them American, and that number is expected to halve by early next year. Last year there were nearly 150,000 coalition troops.

In April, the Taliban declared an ambitious campaign named after Khalid ibn al-Walid, a companion of the Prophet Muhammad, to retake territory and go on killing foreign troops and government workers.

"The Khalid ibn al-Walid operation ... has completely failed," said Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi.

Army losses were not disclosed, but Gen. Mohammad Salim Assas, who leads the Interior Ministry's police forces, said last week that 1,273 national police, 770 village police and 556 Afghan civilians were killed during the fighting season from the beginning of March to Oct. 25.

Assas said 2,168 insurgents were killed in nearly 2,000 security operations.

He said insurgents mounted 6,604 attacks in 30 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces during that period, including 50 suicide bombings, 1,704 shootings and shellings, 1,186 bombings and 920 ambushes./Associated Press/

This year's fighting season was a crucial test for Afghanistan's nascent army and police forces, which had assumed full responsibility for the country's security for the first time. 

With the fighting season nearly over, the results are mixed. While the Afghan security forces have managed to hold off the Taliban, they have been unable to make any major gains themselves and have suffered record numbers of casualties.

The casualty figures released this month by the Afghan government will do little to quash doubts about the ability of Afghanistan's security forces to maintain order after the majority of international combat troops leave at the end of 2014.

The Afghan Interior Ministry on October 29 revealed that 2,052 members of the Afghan National Police (ANP) and Afghan Local Police (ALP) were killed and more than 5,000 were wounded between April, when fighting traditionally begins, and the end of October, when fighting slows down for winter. The figure for the whole of 2012 was around 1,800 for the police forces.

Over that time, the Taliban launched 6,604 operations, 50 suicide attacks, and 1,704 direct attacks on police -- a marked increase from last year. Many casualties sustained by Afghan forces were in rural areas of the south and east, where the Taliban is strongest.

To safeguard morale, Afghan authorities have not revealed this year's death toll for the Afghan National Army (ANA), although it was described in September by the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Joseph Dunford, as "unsustainable."

U.S General Mark Milley, the commander of NATO ground forces in Afghanistan, said in September that 50 to 100 Afghan soldiers were being killed every month and that was comparable to fatality rates for U.S forces during the Vietnam War.

Last year, the Afghan government said 2,970 police and soldiers were killed. Afghan officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have admitted the number of fatalities suffered by the ANA has increased markedly, making it the bloodiest year for Afghan forces since 2001.

There have been persistent questions over the competence of the Afghan army and police, which suffer from a high rate of desertion, a poor reenlistment record, low morale, and inadequate equipment and training.

Abdul Latif, 57, an Afghan man, prays on Nadir Khan hill in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. The hill is known for the cemetery of the last Afghan king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, and his family. The building, left, in the background is an unknown tomb. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

The U.S special envoy for Afghanistan said Friday that an earlier attempt to reconcile with Taliban figures willing to respect a new Afghan constitution would have saved lives and weakened insurgents, hastening the peace process in Afghanistan.

Speaking on Friday in London, James Dobbins said an earlier move might have prevented a Taliban resurgence and would have lessened its force.

"I think we made several mistakes back in 2002," he said about the era just after the successful U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban in response to the 9/11 attacks on the United States, which were planned by al-Qaida leaders based inside Afghanistan. "I think it was probably a mistake to delay a serious attempt at reconciliation until 2011."

Dobbins, who is the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, spoke after talks with Britain's Foreign Office. He said there should have been an early effort to integrate Taliban members who were "willing to come over, to operate under the new dispensation, willing to accept the constitution as it was evolving at the time. Those initiatives would have been better if they had been taken earlier."

The envoy also said the 2003 invasion of Iraq shifted U.S attention away from Afghanistan at a crucial time, giving the Taliban time to regroup and raises funds.

"The decision to move onto Iraq ultimately made it more difficult to turn attention back to Afghanistan once the situation there deteriorated," he said. "So by 2005, 2006 it was clear that much more needed to be done in Afghanistan and we simply didn't have the resources to do so."

Despite these setbacks, he said Afghanistan has made progress in recent years.

Hopes for peace talks have diminished with the Taliban refusing to talk directly to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, his government or its representatives. Attempts to open talks between Afghanistan and the Taliban in June ended in failure.(Associated Press)

My mission as the veterinarian for the 734th Agribusiness Development Team stationed in Kunar province, Afghanistan  was an interesting one. For example, I was able to participate in a veterinary seminar together with 35 veterinarians,  for nearly all of the private veterinary practitioners in Kunar.

With the help of the provincial vet, Dr. Mohammad Ghalib, and the Cooperative Medical Assistance vet, Maj. Robert Paul, DVM, we presented numerous topics we thought would interest the Afghan vets. They were schooled on nutrition and parasitism of livestock, observed a canine castration, and two goats were examined post-mortem for pathology. The seminar was a celebration to these veterinarians who do not often come together in one room for learning.

I was particularly pleased to talk about a topic that is important to both the veterinary and medical communities. I have been working on developing a rabies control program for the province. Rabies is a disease that the world has known of for over 4000 years. As most people know it is nearly 100 percent lethal once the affected animal or person develops clinical nervous signs like delirium or headache and fever. But with today’s vaccines this same disease is nearly 100 percent preventable.

Many people, especially in the modern world, think rabies is an unimportant disease because they have never seen an animal or person with the disease. I have never seen an animal with rabies even after working in mixed animal practice for 26 years. But when I asked the Afghan vets each one said he had seen the disease. Ghalib remarked he had also seen a child die from it. In Asia and Africa over 55,000 people die each year from rabies and this number is likely widely underestimated. It is possible 100 times more people die but with poor medical care and limited public health services the deaths are not reported.

Human deaths from rabies are very difficult to watch and patients need considerable sedation which is often unavailable in the developing world. The veterinary doctors were strongly supportive of helping in a rabies control campaign. One remarked he viewed it as his duty to provide such services that would help the community. The best ways to help an Afghan community is through dog vaccination and education of the people about dog behavior and bite management. Children are particularly vulnerable and need to know how to prevent dog attacks. Rabies control programs are not easy to implement, but I left this meeting knowing my Afghan colleagues feel strongly about helping the people of their province.