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