NEPALESE ARMY TAKES IN WOMEN FOR COMBAT

August 4 (UPI) -- The Royal Nepalese Army has completed the training of its first group of female recruits, after authorities decided that 5 percent of soldiers should be women.

The 197 recruits, selected from 2,500 applicants, were put through a 22-week training camp where they learned to use self-loading rifles, light machine guns and grenades and mortars. A second batch of 251 recruits will start training from August 17.

Army Chief of Staff General Pyarjung Thapa said the women would be assigned non-combat work, such as operating telephones and computers, but would eventually be inducted into fighting units. The army employs about 800 women in legal and medical positions, but this is the first time they have been trained as soldiers.

At least three of the women were soldiers' widows who joined the army to avenge their husbands' deaths at the hands of Maoist rebels, according to local reports.

A local daily hinted that the women soldiers could be deployed on special missions to tackle the Maoists' cadre of women.

From: http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040804-040741-5559r.htm