Sri Lankan troops to have more recruits

• Source: Xinhua
• [08:34 July 01 2009]
• Comments

The Sri Lankan government said on Tuesday that its troops who have just concluded a successful military campaign against the Tamil Tigers are to be further bolstered with more recruits.

"We will recruit 50,000 more to the Army, Navy, Air Force and Police," the government's defense spokesman and minister of foreign employment Keheliya Rambukwella told reporters.

"I am saying this because some people say that the Army will have to go home now," Rambukwella said, referring to the end of war last month against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Sri Lanka's troops numbered less than 200,000 when its military campaign began in 2006.

However, a series of unprecedented military successes throughout the campaign had prompted more recruits to the military, analysts said.

Meanwhile, military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said that two more security forces headquarters have been set up in the newly liberated areas in the north.

They have been set up at Kilinochchi, the former rebel administrative capital and Mullaittivu, the former military capital of the LTTE.

Army Commander Sarath Fonseka has urged the island's youth to join the military after the defeat of the rebels.

 The LTTE had been fighting for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east for more than two decades, before it was defeated by the government troops in May.

About 300,000 Tamil civilians displaced by the last battles between the government troops and the LTTE are now being housed in different camps in the northern Vavuniya and Jaffna districts, waiting to be resettled to their original habitats.