Army Riding High

The Sri Lanka Army is currently training around 31,000 personnel, of whom 28,000 are new recruits to various regiments of the Army. The Sri Lanka Military Academy in Diyatalawa is currently training intake 62 of the Army’s Officer Cadets who will soon pass-out as Second Lieutenants. One regiment which has received the most attention from both serving officers and new recruits is the Special Forces Brigade.

In October last year, over 130 serving officers and men from the Army’s regular infantry completed their training program and passed out with flying colours at Maduru Oya. They were the only successful candidates to receive the Black Beret out of over 900 officers and men who applied for the training.

In April this year, a batch of around 350 new recruits to the Special Forces are to pass out with another 350 expected to pass out from the same Training School in July this year. Each new trainee must undergo a grueling 9-month training, including a Compass March, Night-time Training and Close-Quarter Combat. During the Compass March for example, each trainee must fend for himself and survive alone in rough terrain, facing ambushes and live firing by experienced instructors.

The Special Forces have raised some interest overseas as well. A considerably large contingent of Maldivian Army officers and men are also undergoing training at Special Forces and Commando Training Schools as we speak. In an unprecedented move, Special Operations Instructors from the US Marine Corp are to train the Army at Maduru Oya in March. The Marine Corp had previously agreed to train the Army only in Tangalle. Now they have agreed to train the Special Forces at their own Training School in Maduru Oya, which is unprecedented.

Meanwhile Major General L.A.D. Ameratunga was appointed Colonel Commandant of the Special Forces in a recent shakeup in the Army’s top rankers following the forthcoming retirement of some senior officers, including an experienced Major General. The former Colonel Commandant, Maj. Gen G.A. Chandrasiri took over Command of the Armoured Corp, whilst also serving as SF Commander Jaffna.

The Special Forces, which has a very fluid command structure, functions with just one Brigadier, one full Colonel and three lieutenant Colonels. All three Regiments are commanded by Majors. 5 battle-hardened Special Forces Majors from intake 32 were recently enlisted at the Batalanda Staff Training College for a one year training program. Here they will be trained in everything from battle-field strategy, operational strategy to procurement; essential skills to becoming a fully fledged and all-round officer in the Army. Earlier, this course was available for only a select few who had to go abroad (USA-Fort Knox, Kentucky) for the training.

Meanwhile the LTTE is again feeding misinformation to the foreign media, particularly about the casualty rates in the SLA. Their target is probably the Tamil Diaspora and concerned Human Rights groups. A recent example is Al-Jazeera TV, which had reported that 42 SLA were killed in the last artillery strike in Jaffna. The channel subsequently withdrew its report. DefenceWire has independently verified this report and discovered that of the 24 shells that fell in or near the SLA bases in Jaffna, only 7 had landed inside the location where the alleged casualties had been caused. These were inside the 214 Brigade and there were no casualties. The current casualty rate in all confrontations is on average less than 10% of the LTTE losses of each clash reported.