KABUL, Afghanistan — As many as 30,000 Afghan police officers fighting a bloody war against the Taliban have been denied their modest salaries for months, officials said on Wednesday, as the American-led coalition funding the force holds back their pay out of fear that much of it is going into the hands of corrupt leaders.

The move is seen as a punishment of sorts for the leadership of the force, which has lagged in accounting for its men and weeding out “ghost soldiers.”

Officials from the NATO coalition, which largely foots the bill for the Afghan forces — about $4 billion a year — hope the move will shock the leadership into expediting a nationwide inventory of the officers. Their identities are being verified through biometric data.

But bearing the brunt of the decision are the desperate police officers, many of them pinned down by the Taliban in faraway outposts inaccessible to the inventory teams. The officers come from the poorest communities around the country, accepting the risky job for $200 a month when there are few other prospects. Each day last year, an average of about 28 Afghan police officers and army members were killed.