Raskol threat to kill our police

PORT Moresby's feared Raskol gangs have warned they will shoot Australian police officers "if they try and take our lives away" but said they believe the country's corruption will quickly drive out the officers.

The warning came as The Australian learned that one of Papua New Guinea's most senior detectives -- suspended for receiving free board from a criminal -- had been reinstated and would be serving alongside Australian police.

The first 19 of 210 armed Australian officers -- drawn from state and federal police -- have been deployed to the troubled nation as part of the Howard Government's $1 billion aid program to address law and order problems.

Over the next five years the Australian police will train and re-equip their PNG counterparts, while 64 civil servants are will be seconded to the government bureaucracy.

High on the list of criminal targets for the Australians are expected to be PNG's feared Raskol gangs, which have been implicated in crimes including drug cultivation and smuggling, rape, robbery, fraud, murder and corruption.