ALEPPO, Syria — Women wishing to join the opposition police in the areas liberated during Operation Euphrates Shield will be offered a second training course early December in the city of al-Bab, Mahmoud Ahmed, a police officer at al-Bab police station, told Al-Monitor.

The opposition’s National Police and Public Security Forces in the liberated areas announced Oct. 22 the graduation of 90 policewomen who completed a 21-day training course in a police camp near the city of Azaz, close to the Syrian-Turkish border in the liberated areas, which are under the control of the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

As soon as their graduation leave was over on Nov. 1, these female officers started working in police stations across Azaz, Marea, Suran and Akhtarin.

Ahmed Zeidan, the Azaz police chief and director of the women's police training center, told Al-Monitor, “This is the first batch that graduated in the liberated areas. We started accepting women on Aug. 1 because we are in dire need of policewomen in these areas. Women between the ages of 18 and 35 took a medical and fitness test, and they received a 21-day intensive training course in the detection of criminal offenses, thefts and drug-trafficking operations. They were taught also how to use weapons and search people.”