The Iraqi national police force has opened two new training facilities in the western province of Al Anbar, a significant step towards cementing improving security in the region, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. The academies in Ramadi and Habbaniyah can house nearly 4,000 students at a time for courses lasting as long as 90 days.

The Ramadi academy is larger, with billets for 3,000 versus Habbaniyah's 750. Both are staffed by Iraqi and coalition trainers. The academies train mostly local recruits who will remain in their home towns after graduation. "They are going to stay in this city because they know this city," Iraqi Brigadier General Abdul Karim Khalaf, from the Interior Ministry, says of Ramadi. Despite being in predominantly Sunni communities and serving mostly Sunni trainees, Khalaf says the academies have the full support of the Shi'ite-dominated Interior Ministry.

The Habbaniyah academy was deliberately constructed next door to the headquarters of the local Iraqi Army 1st Division, in order to improve cooperation between the army and police, according to U.S. Army Brigadier General David Phillips, a career military policeman who is deputy commander of the coalition's Civilian Police Assistance Training Team.

The opening of the new police academies coincides with what U.S. commanders call a "turnaround" in regional security.

"In Al Anbar we've seen local leadership wanting to get Al Qaeda out of their area. They're taking action," says Brigadier General Robert Holmes, Deputy Director of Operations at U.S. Central Command in Tampa.

As part of the turnaround, Sunni tribes have fielded what Phillips calls "neighborhood watches" - armed bodies of men tasked with defending their own communities against infiltrators. The community watch groups are "working hand-in-hand" with U.S. and Iraqi forces. In this environment, police recruitment remains strong. "We do not have shortage of individuals requesting to join the police," Phillips reports.

"Comparing Al Anbar to what I saw just a few months ago is night and day," Phillips says. "Commerce is working, stores are back open and you get small kids out on the streets waving as you drive past." 

Next up, according to Phillips, is the construction across Iraq of "rule of law complexes" that combine police and judicial facilities and cut back on delays in getting criminal suspects to trial. Phillips credits the flagship complex in Baghdad with greatly improving law enforcement and easing jail crowding.