KABUL, Feb. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- Afghanistan's ambitious Afghan disarmament program is going to complete by the end of the first half of this year, spokesperson of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said Thursday.

    "Some 36,000 or two thirds of Afghan militias have been disarmed and the remaining around 15,000 or one third will be disarmed by June 2005," spokesperson of the UNAMA Ariane Quentiere told journalists at a news briefing here.

    Under a UN-backed Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration(DDR) program launched in October 2003, the post-war Afghanistan was designed to get rid of thousands of armed militias.

    Some 100,000 militias loyal to different commanders, according to reports of the Defense Ministry, had existed after the fall of Taliban in late 2001 but officials at UNAMA put the number between50,000 to 60,000.

    Over 40 percent of the former militia had laid down their arms before the historic October presidential polls while the remainingwas scheduled to be disarmed before parliamentary elections slatedfor next April. Enditem