Nations in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have now amassed around 40,000 extra troops and have begun flooding them into strife-torn Afghanistan as part of a new counter-insurgency strategy.

But for all its military efforts, ISAF's ultimate success in implementing the strategy, which aims to protect civilians rather than hunt down fighters, hinges on its ability to train the national army and police.

Only when the Afghan forces are built to sufficient strength and skill can the more than 110,000 international troops fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked fighters start returning home.

"Concerning police, there is really a big shortfall," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned Monday. "We are still short of more than 100 training teams."

The teams usually comprise 20-30 trainers, and a NATO official said between 2,000 and 2,400 more personnel -- instructors and mentors -- were required.

"In the coming couple of years we will need even more," said Rasmussen, who said he would raise fresh ideas with the ministers in Istanbul for beefing up the effort.

ISAF aims to expand the police force from some 80,000 now to 109,000 in October, and 134,000 by October 2011. The trainers are not only needed for the recruits, but also to improve the quality of officers already on the beat.

"The training requirement on the police side is just huge. Only about 25 percent of the police that are currently on site have actually had any training," a senior US official told reporters Tuesday.

Many recruits are illiterate, like more than half of Afghans, and must spend months in the classroom before they can read a driver's licence or identity papers, on top of an eight-week basic police course.

The police -- often targeted at checkpoints or in their stations -- are trained, in the main, by ISAF troops mixed with police experts. The European Union is training Afghans to become trainers themselves.

But the EU mission, which was to have reached capacity of 400 staff last year, has stalled, and only has around 60 percent of the personnel needed.

European police must volunteer and few are willing to leave the relative safety of their home capitals to seek work in dangerous Afghanistan.

Washington has been applying quiet pressure on its European allies to take on a greater role, with France notably receiving attention currently. Germany has already begun shifting its focus toward training, officials say.

"The basic trade-off is this: either we keep our troops there and provide for their security, or we train them so they provide for their own security," the senior US official said.

"It is cheaper, better and much more efficient to do the latter."

The Istanbul talks start Thursday at 1800 GMT with a working dinner centred on NATO funding and reforms. The ministers will be joined Friday by their ISAF counterparts for talks on Afghanistan; the alliance's most challenging mission.

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