Police officers from around the world deploy to conflict zones to assist in promoting the rule of law and specifically to aid in the reform of dysfunctional police forces. Many of them serve as part of the United Nations (UN), which has been deploying police officers in peacekeeping operations since the United Nations Operation in Congo in the 1960s. As of 2010, 17,500 police officers were working in UN missions. The European Union also sends police officers to postconflict countries such as Kosovo, Afghanistan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A small percentage of police officers are deployed by their own countries to a conflict-affected country, as is the case with U.S. police officers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Australian federal police officers in Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea, Nauru, the Solomon Islands, and Cambodia.