U.S. experts train Indonesian police

U.S. experts train Indonesian police

HONG KONG: U.S. security experts are training, funding and
arming a crack squad of specially screened Indonesian police to
lead the country's fight against terrorism, a report seen here
Wednesday said.

When operational by 2005, the team of 400 officers, called
Detachment 88, will be able to respond to everything from bomb
scares to hostage crises to armed assaults, the Far Eastern
Economic Review reports in its Nov. 13 edition out Thursday.

Already three 10-man police investigation teams, three eight-
man tactical response units and three five-man bomb squads have
graduated from the US State Department-run program, the report
says.

Citing Washington officials, it says US$16 million has already
been spent on equipping the program with "state-of-the-art
communications equipment, night-vision gear, technical support
and weaponry, including Heckler and Koch MP5 sub-machine guns and
Remington 700 sniper rifles".

In a move aimed as much at keeping its own image clean,
recruits will be vetted for clean human rights records and to
prevent officers who served in the East Timor campaign in 1999
from signing up.

The article, however, quotes Western military expert warnings
that Detachment 88 may not be as effective as hoped.

"They really aren't yet capable of doing high-level tasks," it
quotes one as saying, adding experts believe it will be years
before the squad can match the antiterror skills of the
military's 4,500-strong special forces. -- AFP