Anti-Daesh coalition pins hope on 50 new police graduates

Dozens of young men gathered on Tuesday in a school yard in northern Syria to take the oath at a police graduation ceremony after a week's training supervised by the US-led coalition.

The young men were the first batch of policemen to be trained by the coalition to maintain law and order in Raqqa, as a Kurdish-Arab alliance battles to expel the Daesh group from the rest of the northern province.

Police officers disappeared from Raqqa after the province was taken over by rebels then Daesh after the Syrian conflict broke out in 2011.

Dressed in green uniforms, the graduates stood to attention in the town of Ain Issa, a former Daesh stronghold around 50km north of the city of Raqqa, the militants' de facto Syrian capital.

On their arms, their wore light blue patches bearing the image of an eagle with its wings spread and the words "Raqqa Internal Security Force".

"I swear to God to be loyal to my nation, my people and my country and to fulfil my duty," they said, right arms stretched out in front of them.

They took the oath before members of a civilian council to administer Raqqa city and the surrounding province, before each receiving a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

"Fifty young men from the Raqqa province followed a seven-day training course under the supervision of US and Jordanian officers," said a spokesman for the nascent Raqqa Civilian Council.

"The second group will start training next week. The aim is to train 3,000 young men to guarantee security and stability in liberated areas of the Raqqa province," Omar Alloush said. The coalition, which has been fighting Daesh in Syria and Iraq since 2014, is in charge of training the policemen and providing them with equipment, he said.

A Jordanian instructor, who asked to remain anonymous, said all the graduates had received "intensive training on how to conduct patrols, diffuse disputes, deal with car bombs and suicide bombers, and how to man a checkpoint".

Backed by the coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces launched an offensive to capture Raqqa city in November.

Last month, the SDF alliance announced the creation of the civilian council to administer the city after its capture.

All members of the new security force are Arabs, as they will have to police Raqqa city, whose population is mostly Sunnis after its Kurdish minority fled when Daesh overran the provincial capital in 2014.

Some previously belonged to the Kurdish Asayesh security forces, while others returned to the province after the SDF retook parts of it from the militants.

"I was working in Lebanon. I came back after my village was liberated to help maintain security," said Qamar Al Madan, a 23-year-old from Tal Assamen.

"The bloodshed needs to stop, as does the age of oppression under Daesh," he said

Source: Khaleej Times