The 19-year-old Kuwaiti is among the first female police officers who recently graduated from academy in the conservative Gulf Arab state where many believe a woman's place is at home.

"When people said that women will not be able to work as police officers I wanted to prove to them that women can actually make it," said Sergeant Hanan al-Saybaei. "It was not a childhood dream, but I took it as a challenge."

The move is the latest step that the U.S. ally has taken towards greater participation of women in society after granting them the right to vote and run for office in 2005.

"It's an unprecedented step. (Police) was restricted to local men, and women's participation is now a reality," said former oil minister and political analyst Ali al-Baghli.

The new officers will mainly serve in the police academy to train other women recruits or work at the country's airport and woman's prison.

"We were trained on the same weapons that the male police officers use, and we (females) were able to pull through the military training," said 24-year-old Lieutenant Loulwa al-Salem. "It was a huge shift in my life."

But the women police officers face opposition from Islamists, the country's main opposition force which is expected to dominate Kuwait's next parliament after elections in May.

"A man's salute to a military woman with higher rank is a breach to tribal and urban tradition," Kuwaiti religious cleric Ojail al-Nashmi said in a controversial fatwa, or religious edict, published in local papers.

In Kuwait, fatwas are not legally binding but there is pressure by Islamists to adhere to them.

"The military environment is just not suitable for a woman," Islamist election candidate Waleed al-Tabtabae said.

But Saybaei, dining with friends at a women's society reception in Kuwait City, disagreed. "The salute is for the rank not for the person," she said.

The Islamists could change their mind.

Previously, they campaigned to stop women obtaining the right to vote in 2005, but many went on to win over female voters, who account for 55 percent of Kuwait's electorate.

"We remember when they were against women gaining their political rights, but it was the Islamists who benefited from women's participation," Baghli said.

Lieutenant Dalal al-Najjar, another graduate at the police academy, was sanguine about the ruckus over women officers.

"Everything new has its objectors," she said, grinning in triumph.