In a statement late Saturday, Col. Thomas Collins, US Forces Afghanistan spokesperson, said the training has been put on hold in order to carry out intensified vetting procedures on new recruits, and 16,000 existing ALP recruits will be re-vetted.

“While we have full trust and confidence in our Afghan partners, we believe this is a necessary step to validate our vetting process and ensure the quality indicative of Afghan Local Police,” he said in the statement.

Many of the ‘insider’ incidents might have been prevented if existing security measures had been applied correctly, according to the Washington Post which first reported the training suspension.

The newspaper said already-trained recruits would also be re-vetted.