Afghanistan is urging donor countries to provide $422 million so it can build a national army and police force to restore security to the country ravaged by two decades of war.
 
 

Abdullah VOA file photo - R. Daguillard

 As he lobbied in Geneva, a first battalion of 600 Afghan soldiers, trained for six weeks by international peacekeepers, graduated in a Kabul ceremony which interim leader Hamid Karzai hailed as the death knell for warlords. He said the soldiers - 30 officers selected from each of the country's provinces and 600 troops drawn from all ethnic groups and geographic areas - will initially serve as presidential guards.

 Afghanistan is eventually expected to have a standing army of 60,000 soldiers - most of them trained by U.S. military experts as part of a multi-million dollar aid package from the United States.

 Meanwhile, Britain's first combat troops - about 100 Royal Marine commandos - arrived Wednesday at Bagram air base just outside of the Afghan capital. The troops are the first of a British force of 1,700 elite troops expected to be deployed in Afghanistan.
 
 

Some information for this report provided by AFP and AP.

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