BAZZAR-E-PANJWAII, Afghanistan - The Canadian military is allocating new resources for the recruitment and training of Afghan police officers, hoping to forestall the need to employ militia-like groups to protect their gains in Kandahar's Panjwaii district.

Under pressure from NATO commanders, the Afghan government launched a program this summer to provide 10,000 villagers weapons and basic training as part of a community self-defence initiative.

Yet, the Afghan Local Police program has stirred controversy.

Afghan officials are concerned that arming villagers will undermine Kabul's authority in the remote stretches of the country.

Senior Canadian officers have said villagers in the volatile district southwest of Kandahar City have increasingly been confronting the Taliban on their own initiative.

The commander of the Canadian mission in Kandahar, Brig. Gen. Dean Milner, indicated last month that he was willing to use the program in Panjwaii, where his troops have claimed recent successes against the Taliban.

But rather than enable further confrontations between villagers and the Taliban, Milner would prefer to boost the number of Afghan National Police in Panjwaii's rural areas.

"ALP is still a possibility but it's not my number one priority," he said following a patrol through Bazzar-e-Panjwaii, the district's economic hub.

"My number one priority is assisting these guys in filling the ... (open spots) for the ANP."

There is a significant shortage of ANP officers in Panjwaii, a shortage which is even more acute in smaller villages. Milner said he would be happy if the district could fill 430 of the 700 ANP spots allocated for the area by the Afghan government.

"If we can recruit those numbers, I can get them into villages and there won't be a necessity for ALP," he added. "If I can't recruit then I will have to look at specific villages."

NATO began rolling out the ALP program in Kandahar last month, establishing a force 90-strong in northern Arghandab. The deployment of similar groups across the country is among the central tenets of the coalition's strategy against the Taliban.

Gen. David Petraeus, the senior NATO commander in Afghanistan, is seeking to rapidly expand the country's security forces by next July, when the U.S. is slated to start withdrawing troops and Canada's mission will also end.

Milner recently briefed the incoming NATO commander for southern Afghanistan, U.S. Maj. Gen. James Terry, about his intentions to focus on the ANP instead of the local militia.

The Canadian general is optimistic that a new district chief of police in Panjwaii, Mohammad Azim, will be able to find a new batch of recruits. Military officials point out that despite being on the job less than a month, Azim has already signed 140 members to the force.

To date, the ANP have been the weak link in the fledgling Afghan security forces. It is widely seen as corrupt and ineffective by local Afghans.

Even Panjwaii's district governor acknowledged that Azim has been given a difficult task.

"He has some challenges ahead of him," said Haji Baran. "It is mainly his resources that he is lacking, such as weapons and tactical infrastructure for his men."

In their recruitment drive, both the Canadian military and Azim are hoping to capitalize on what appears to be a growing trend of locals resisting the Taliban. The areas around Bazzar-e-Panjwaii have seen several small clusters of villagers rise up against the insurgents.

"People have come forward to stand by the government," said Azim. "My main priority is to have these people join us in rebuilding our country."

To help professionalize the emerging grassroots resistance, ANP officers receive a monthly salary that is 40 per cent higher than the stipend given to ALP members. They are also supposed to receive about double the amount of training.

But Milner acknowledged that offering enough training will be difficult for Afghan authorities. "We'll have to train them ourselves," he said.

Canada plans to help in this area. Canadian military police in Kandahar will be re-deployed to Panjwaii in mentoring positions, which will effectively amount to intensive on-the-job training.

"We're going to train them, give them some basic capabilities and then push them out into the villages," said Milner.

It is in these remote areas of Panjwaii where Canadians feel their recent gains are most fragile.

Soldiers have been busy building combat outposts to solidify their presence near villages where Taliban have been pushed out during recent clearing operations.

But the soldiers also say that any long-term security solution must include the ANP.

"The police have to be that credible face," said Maj. Steve Noel, whose India Company is responsible for the Bazzar-e-Panjwaii area.

"That's a stage we have to get to."