WASHINGTON, July 28 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. military in Iraq is expanding its efforts to recruit and fund armed Sunni residents as local protection forces in order to improve security and promote reconciliation at the neighborhood level, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

    Within the past month, the U.S. military command in charge of day-to-day operations in Iraq ordered subordinate units to step up the creation of the local forces, authorizing commanders to pay the fighters with emergency funds, reward payments and other monies, senior U.S. commanders were quoted as saying.

    The initiative, which extends to all Iraqis, represents at least a temporary departure from the established U.S. policy of building formally trained security forces under the control of the Iraqi government. It has also provoked fears within the Shiite-led government that the new Sunni groups will use their arms against it, commanders said.

    The goal is to put the new, irregular forces in place quickly -- hiring them on contracts and providing them with uniforms without waiting for access to lengthy police and army training programs, the report said.

    In the long term, the goal is to incorporate the units into the Iraqi security forces. The initiative arises out of efforts underway by some U.S. military units to enlist forces from local tribes as well as insurgent groups in different neighborhoods, most of which have been predominantly Sunni.

    The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, called the development of the grass-roots forces the most significant trend in Iraq "of the last four months or so" and one that could help propel slow-moving efforts at national reconciliation among Iraq's main religious sects and ethnic groups.

    U.S. commanders acknowledge that there is a risk that the Iraqi government will refuse to hire some or all of the local force members and will instead use the names of the Sunni recruits as target lists, according to the report.

    A chief concern for U.S. troops will be how to prevent intentional or accidental conflicts between the groups, Lt. Col. George A. Glaze, commander of 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, who oversees the Sadiyah neighborhood where the 250 Sunnis volunteered, was quoted as saying.

    Moreover, despite U.S. urging, the Iraqi Interior Ministry has failed to approve the hiring of the neighborhood forces as full-fledged police officers, including more than 2,000 recently recruited from Abu Ghraib, the report said.