The president has appointed a central corps commander, deputy commander, chief of staff and brigade commanders for the newly trained army, presidential spokesman Jawid Luddin told reporters.

"In the presidential decree relating to new appointments to the central corps of the national army, General Mohammed Moeen has been appointed as the commander of central corps of the army," Luddin said.

The creation of the multi-ethnic Afghan National Army (ANA), which is being trained by American, British and French instructors in Kabul, is considered a key element for security and stability of Afghanistan.

So far it has only a few thousand trained soldiers, but the aim is to create a 70,000-strong fighting force to maintain security nationwide.

About 10,000 pro-government forces are due to be inducted into the army.

"There have also been some appointments within the ministry of defence to lower positions with the central army corps," the spokesman said.

"Progress has also been made in discussions within the ministry of defence which mainly focused on the structure of the ministry," Luddin said.

The defence ministry reforms were a condition for the start of a massive disarmament campaign -- disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration, or DDR -- launched by the international community.

"DDR process was launched Saturday and in the first phase will cover Gardez and Kunduz and then extended to other provinces," Luddin told reporters.

"Japan is covering 35 million dollars out of 50 million dollars allocated to the DDR program so far," he said.

WAR.WIRE