GUND, Afghanistan, (AFP) – As one seasoned Afghan army commander delivered an impassioned speech urging bickering village elders to stop harboring Taliban, another strutted around barking orders into his radio.

Afghan soldiers joined US Marines last week in their sweep of hostile villages in rural southwest Farah province.

But the military men had vastly differing levels of experience.

The battalion commander making his address earned his stripes in the guerrilla war against the Soviets, yet his company commander on the radio was a former teacher with little training.

''Our commander talks like a turkey, he talks a lot,'' said one man, on condition of anonymity, of Major Ali Hussein.

The major, who refused to wear a flak jacket during the dangerous four-day operation, was not even understood by the local Pashtu-speaking population as he addressed them in the country's other main language, Dari.

Training Afghanistan's national army is critical to the future security of the country, with many policy experts arguing for an accelerated handover from foreign forces.

At present there are about 15,000 Afghan soldiers and 10,000 police in the south -- about half the number of international forces.

NATO's commander in the region told AFP in an interview Thursday that he needed another 10,000 to 15,000 coalition troops, as well as more Afghan army troops to secure the strategically vital region.

''We also need additional ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces),'' Major General Mart de Kruif said.

''We need balance if we want to implement embedded partnering. We'll get additional ANSF in RC (Regional Command) South, hopefully in the first half of next year,'' he said.

Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Anwar Sakra, the 48-year-old ethnic Hazara battalion commander who spoke to villagers in Gund flanked by US Marines, acknowledged his soldiers' weaknesses.

''Afghan people are warriors but the problem is they don't know how to fight, so working with the Marines helps us to learn from them. Our forces don't know command and control,'' he said.

Sakra fought from the age of 14 with mujahedeen fighters against Soviet forces and is proud of his past.

He told of successfully hiding in a grave and playing dead, and of another occasion when his friends thought he had been blown up and hastily arranged his funeral -- until he made a shock return.

Sakra acknowledged his men's shortcomings but said that up to 180 of the 500 under his control were ''really good fighters.''

However, Marines complained of having to ''babysit'' their ANA (Afghan National Army) counterparts on missions and said they were frustrated by the soldiers' refusal to patrol with them at night.