Dyncorp Trained Afghan Police Officers And Instructors Train Afghan Policemen

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - SEPTEMBER 7: An Afghan police officer trains a class of basic patrol policemen at a US funded police training center, September 7, 2004 in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Afghan police training course was initially organized by the German government and OSCE, but the US Department of Defense wanted an accelerated turn out of Afghan trainers and officers. Since May 2003, the Kabul training center has turned out 25,000 policemen and officers under a variety of two to eight week courses, refresher courses for instructors and installed seven regional training centers throughout Afghanistan. With the upcoming presidential elections slated for October 9, 2004, US government officials felt more security could be beefed up with more local police rather than US or European army soldiers. Dyncorp Company hires former police officers as trainers on an annual or contract basis. The instructors plan to graduate 38,000 policemen by the end of 2004 and 52,000 by the end of 2005. Afghan Border and Highway Police will also be put through the various centers. Seventy percent of the Afghan policemen passing through the training centers are illiterate or from a low level of education. The students in brown uniforms are from little to no education backgrounds and in their 4th day of the course. Dyncorp supplies personal bodyguards and security for interim Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Dyncorp is made up of former US Special Forces soldiers, European soldiers and police officers. Private security companies have become targets for Islamic militants in Afghanistan and in Iraq. A suicide bomber detonated a car bomb outside of the Dyncorp head office in Kabul, August 29, 2004, killing 6 people including three Americans, two Nepalis and one Afghan child. (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)