Among the many tasks of the provincial reconstruction teams is training Afghan National Police officers. All local police officers work for the central government, and in Khowst Province there are about 1,100 of them.

At a recent training session for district commanders and senior officers, 22 police chiefs and investigators sat silent through much of the day.

In a land where most villages have no electricity or telephones, an overview of modern law enforcement technology video cameras in police cars, high-speed computers, genetic identification methods meant little. The notion of a police complaint line provoked quickly hidden amusement.

Master Sgt. Edith Horn said cultural differences increase the challenges. "There are 11 tribes in the province, and each one has its own version of tribal law," she said.

Tribal law can be extreme by Western standards. Ayaz Hiderkhil, a reconstruction team interpreter listening to Horn, said a family sometimes compensates another for a wrong by handing over a young woman. The woman is married into her new family but is treated more like a servant than a wife, he said.

One of the most lively discussions came after Sgt. Daniel Dow, a military police officer, asked the native policemen to name advantages of hiring women. There was a moment's hesitation, then one hand went up. It belonged to Sayed Aziz of the central police district in Khowst.

"We can search female criminals, capture female criminals," he said.

Dow nodded encouragingly.

"On the other hand, the equality of male and female on the police force would be a force for equality," Aziz said.

Another said hiring women would be difficult: Khowst is a conservative area even by Afghan standards, and by tradition men and women can't work together.

It was difficult to tell whether the policemen were speaking favorably of equality because they thought that was what the Americans wanted to hear. Two of the U.S. soldiers present were women and one, Horn, is a police officer in civilian life.

Every Afghan in the room was male, including two workers who brought in pots of green tea and dishes of tiny candied almonds partway through the class for a traditional Afghan tea break. Indeed, it is rare to see women in public in the town.

During the tea break, Gul Mohammed, police commander in Bak, a rural district with about 100,000 residents, said any training is a help. Resources are scarce, he said. Police salaries, which come from the government in Kabul, start at about $60 a month.

The police leaders, Mohammed said, were sincere in wishing for female officers, but change would come slowly. In some ways, tradition makes hiring women logical, he said. "If a female committed some crimes, to have a man investigating wouldn't be proper.

"There will be a proper environment for it, but today it's like we start from zero," he said. "We must have patience."