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By The Daily Gleaner

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The University of New Brunswick's Wu Conference Centre is hosting a conference about Afghanistan.

The event, which starts today and winds up Saturday, is put on by the Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society and the Combat Training Centre at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown as part of their annual conference.

The event is entitled Cultivating Professionalism: Training and Mentoring Local Security Forces, from the Second World War to Afghanistan.

The conference will focus on the challenge of building a professional national army and police forces in Afghanistan, which will enable Canadian soldiers to withdraw from that country in 2011.

The conference will explore how Canada's mentoring and training program with the Afghan security forces has evolved over the past five years and where it's heading.

"Creating professional military and police forces has been the priority for the NATO/UN mission in Afghanistan for many years," said Lee Windsor of UNB's Gregg Centre in a news release.

"This training and mentoring task is central to the international community's exit strategy in south Asia. More broadly, the question of security-sector reform is at the heart of many stability and human rights challenges around the world."

In Kabul and in Kandahar Province, Canadian Forces and RCMP members, along with Foreign Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency, play roles in training and mentoring the Afghan National Army and Police, noted the release.

"This effort draws on decades of experience among western nations in organizing security forces in conflict zones for the purposes of waging war, establishing civil rest and frequently to serve both purposes," the release said.

Speakers for the event include:

* Maj.-Gen. Dennis Tabbernor, Canadian Forces chief of reserves and former deputy commanding general for Afghan National Army Development with Combined Security Transition Command - Afghanistan;

* James Willbanks of U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and author of Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost its War;

* and Supt. Paul Young, RCMP Afghanistan program manager.