Kabul: Afghanistan has stepped up the process of raising a new national Army having representation from all sects, including Pashtuns, Tajiks and Uzbeks and would shortly deploy them in Kandahar, Kabul and Jalalabad which faces the vulnerable Durand borderline with Pakistan.

International trainers of the Army say that extreme care is being taken to form an "apolitical force" to avoid internal revolts on ethnic grounds as witnessed in the past.

The raising of the new Army has been speeded up with its strength already shooting up to 16,000 troops, US Army officers, who are training them, said.

"We are screening the personnel to ensure that bad apples don't find their way in and that ethnic balance is strictly maintained," Brig Gen Richard Moorhead, head of the US-led Task force Phoenix training the new Afghan Army told visiting Indian journalists.

He said the force would be deployed at its peak strength of 40,000 to 45,000 personnel by 2007.

He said screening was being done to ensure that no remnants of al-Qaeda, Taliban or other ultra fundamentalist elements find their way into the force.

It is going to be an Army with "international flavour," assert the US Army trainers who said that screening was being done to ensure that balance was maintained in the induction of soldiers from the erstwhile Northern Alliance and raw recruits and that the soldiers vowed allegiance to the constitution than political or royal figures.