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Palestinian police during a demonstration exercise in Jericho on Tuesday. (AP)
Last update - 00:00 28/05/2008
Palestinian forces return from U.S.-funded training in Jordan
By Reuters
Tags: Palestinian Authority, Fatah 

The first batallion of a Palestinian security force trained in Jordan under a U.S. program returned to the West Bank on Wednesday, part of a Western push to ready the Palestinians for statehood.

More than 600 members of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's National Security Force (NSF) crossed the Allenby Bridge and returned to their base in the West Bank city of Jericho, Western officials said.

The men will undergo additional U.S.-sponsored training and receive new equipment before being deployed in the West Bank in August.
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Washington wants to train the backbone of a 50,000-member gendarmerie that would underpin any future Palestinian state, but the training program has been hampered by delays and limitations on equipment such as body armour.

Some 400 members of Abbas's Presidential Guard returned from a shorter training program in April and were deployed as part of a large security crackdown in the northern city of Jenin.

A second NSF batallion is expected to begin the four-month training course in Jordan later this summer.

The training is conducted by Jordanian police at the Jordanian International Police Training Centre near Amman.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas launched U.S.-backed statehood talks in November with the goal of reaching a deal this year but negotiations have so far shown little progress.

Olmert insists a Palestinian state will not be established until Abbas reins in militants in the West Bank, where his Fatah faction holds sway, and the Gaza Strip, which Hamas Islamists seized in June.

While acknowledging improvement in some parts of the West Bank, Israel asserts that Palestinian security forces are still unreliable and too weak to confront militants, a charge the Palestinians deny.

The U.S. vetting program requires detailed background checks for each recruit. Israel has a veto over who participates because it has to give them permission to travel to Jordan.


Related articles:
  • Israel to transfer security in Jenin area to Palestinians
  • In a sign of changing times, IDF and PA military officers meet to talk security
  • Palestinian forces en route to Jenin for large-scale security op
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