Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The United States has led a Western program to form and train a national guard for Iraq.

Officials said the U.S. military was training Sunnis and Shi’ites to form a national guard to protect against Islamic State of Iraq and Levant. They said 2,000 Sunnis have already been trained by Washington and its allies in NATO.

“It recognizes there needs to be a middle tier that can respond to terrorism and criminality at the provincial level,” a senior official said.

In a briefing on Dec. 2, the State Department official said the National Guard would organize units in each of Iraq’s 19 provinces. They said the new force would reflect the demographic composition in each of the provinces, whether Shi’ite, Sunni or Kurd.

“That is the concept behind the national guard,” the official said.

As part of the effort, the United States has helped recruit and train members of Sunni tribes in northern Iraq. Officials said some 2,000 Sunnis could be recruited into the National Guard or the Iraqi military.

“They are already graduating Sunni fighters out in Al Asad in the Anbar province,” the official said.

  U.S. trains Iraqi national guard units in all 19 provinces, WorldTribune.com