evidence: General Officer in-charge of the 58th Division, Brigadier Shavendra de Silva, told that the Sri Lankan troops were exercising maximum restraint to avoid civilian casualties. [...] Sri Lankan military said it wants to boost up its manpower by more than 100,000 troops to prevent resurgence of the LTTE or any other such group. The troop build up, which will increase the number of Sri Lankan forces from 200,000 to 300,000, was announced by the Army Commander General Sarath Fonseka amidst fears in Colombo that the LTTE militants living abroad may try to resurrect the group under a new leadership. "There may be people abroad trying to promote a new leader and stage a comeback," Fonseka told. But, "it will not be easy for them to build up a terror group as they did before", the army chief asserted. More than 22,000 LTTE militants were killed in the offensive and another 9,000 surrendered to the Government forces, Fonseka added. He also indicated that fresh operations might be carried out to flush out small LTTE units still in hiding in the jungles. [...] Sri Lankas Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Sarath Fonseka, who as Army Chief led the war against the LTTE, sent in his resignation letter to President Mahinda Rajapakse, possibly to join politics. Sources in the Presidential Secretariat said Rajapakse would accept the resignation with effect from December 1.