 By the early 1980s the Provosts and all of the Soviet aircraft had been taken out of active service and placed in long-term storage, leaving the air force without any fighter/bomber capability.Rapid growth began in the mid-1980s, when the Sri Lankan Civil War against Tamil separatists drew the service into a major, long-term security role.In 1982 the SLAF reactivated airfields at Batticaloa, Anuradhapura, Koggala and Sigiriya that had been disused since World War II, all later becoming SLAF Stations.