Sri Lanka's notorious STF to be more heavily armed

Citing the threat of drug cartels the Sri Lankan government has authorised the use of further arms by Sri Lanka's notorious Special Task Force (STF) officers. 

The STF's Chief Senior DIG M R Latheef told The Sunday Morning "it has been decided to arm STF personnel with special weapons to defend themselves while carrying out raids on underworld gangsters and drug kingpins."

The paper reported a 'senior police source' as saying that "around 1,000 weapons would be procured from the US to be used by the STF."

"This would include 500 units of M16 assault rifles, 250 units of MP5 submachine guns, and 250 pistols."

The decision has been viewed with alarm by human rights activists globally who have highlighted the STF's bloody past. 

The STF is a paramilitary unit widely understood to be responsible for a range of human rights violations and extrajudicial killings, including a string of massacres of Tamils, such as the 'Trinco 5' murders. 

In a report last year the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) identified 56 STF individuals who the group said should not be deployed as UN peacekeepers, including an officer then serving in Africa, as they were involved in extrajudicial killings.