Swedish island gets own army regiment

STOCKHOLM, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Swedish government announced on Wednesday that the Baltic island of Gotland is to get its own army regiment in 2018.

At the outset, the new regiment will consist of around 350 people, but it will grow successively, Swedish Television reported on Wednesday. This is the first re-establishment of a Swedish army regiment since the 1980s.

"The re-establishment is taking place amidst a worsening security situation in the region and there is a need for a coordinated military leadership on Gotland," Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist said.

There have been four previous army regiments on Gotland, with the last one phased out in 2005. The base of the new Gotland regiment will be in the town of Visby.

The last time Sweden instituted new army regiments was during the second World War, when a number of air force bases were set up, Hultqvist said.

In its 2015 defense policy, Sweden's Social Democrat-Green Party government designated Gotland as one of the country's strategic military areas. In September, Sweden held a three-week long military exercise called Aurora 17. It was the country's biggest military exercise in 23 years and the main focus was the defense of Gotland. Army units from across Sweden took part and it also involved troops from the United States and some other NATO countries. Enditem