A group of Jordanian military instructors was sent to Afghanistan on Sunday to help train the country's security forces, the official Petra news agency reported. "Instructors from Jordan's armed forces and security service went on Sunday to Afghanistan where they will train Afghan forces in security methods, to help them do their duty in restoring law and order there," it said.
The agency did not report how many instructors were sent. In March, Jordan said it had been asked by Nato to train Afghan police, and said it was studying the request.
In May, Information Minister Nabil Sharif told a news conference: "Jordan has trained 2,500 members of the Afghan special forces. This was in the past. The group has completed its training and there are no trainees now." A Jordanian military source told AFP that training took place in 2007, but declined to elaborate.
Jordan's special forces chief Brigadier Ali Jaradat has said in published remarks that 1,500 servicemen, including anti-terror forces, from Afghanistan and Iraq have received training at the 200-million-dollar King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Centre, which was inaugurated in May last year.
The Nato alliance, facing waning public support for the war in Afghanistan, is anxious to begin a transition next year that would have Afghan army and police take over security from US-led troops in some parts of the country.
Jordan acknowledged it had a counterterrorism role in Afghanistan after the death in a January suicide bombing of a senior intelligence officer, who was also a member of the royal family. His death along with seven US Central Intelligence Agency personnel spotlighted for the first time Jordan's role in the international coalition in the war-hit country.
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