Palestinian police reclaim West Bank streets

By Wafa Amr

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian police are slowly starting to exert control over some West Bank towns, long the domain of hooded gunmen and their automatic rifles, with the aid of Western-backed funding and training.

The security drive, demanded by many Palestinians and which Israel says is a prerequisite for peace, has seen green-bereted security officers bent on enforcing law and order emerge from the chaos of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

"When I look at the Palestinian police force, I see a force without resources, but I see a force I believe is professional and has very strongly been politically impartial," said Colin Smith, head of the European Union police mission (EUPOL COPPS) in the Palestinian territories.

The mission is training Palestinian police officers at a centre in the West Bank town of Jericho with donations from the Danish government amounting to 482,660 euros ($700,000).

Smith said he was seeking an additional 1.5 million euros for training and equipment.

Poorly paid, their firepower outclassed by gunmen allied to family clans and factions, and weakened by Israeli raids, many Palestinian police were for years either in the pockets of West Bank gangsters or simply did not bother to turn up for work.

Now they are beginning to win kudos on the streets with better pay, training and weapons provided under a plan by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's government to hunt down criminal gangs and restore law and order.

Police officers who used to be too scared to enter the old city of Nablus -- once a militant stronghold -- made their first foray into its narrow alleyways in years in November.

Some were greeted by residents with flowers and hugs.

"We are now better trained and better equipped, we feel more confident," said policeman Mahmoud Da'abes from Nablus.

Fayyad was appointed by President Mahmoud Abbas in June after Hamas Islamists seized the Gaza Strip from Fatah forces loyal to Abbas. Abbas also sacked the Hamas-led unity government, opening the way to U.S.-backed peace talks.

Palestinians have vowed to rein in militants under a 2003 peace "road map".

Israeli officials say they are skeptical the crackdown against criminal gangs can be sustained and expanded to heavily armed militants, particularly those aligned with Abbas's secular Fatah faction.

PROGRESS SLOW?

Fayyad's security plan is being implemented in coordination with Israel and has seen the deployment of armed Palestinian policemen in the West Bank in stages.