Attracting more ethnic minority recruits with family roots in countries prone to producing terrorists could help tackle the global threat, the head of the Army has indicated.

General Sir Peter Wall said he recognised that young people from those communities were “not naturally inclined to join the soldiering profession”.

The Chief of the General Staff noted that it would be impossible for the armed forces to operate at full strength in future years without more input from under-represented parts of society.

But he indicated that encouraging more ethnic minority candidates to join the ranks could also have “side benefits” in the battle against global terror threats.

General Wall was answering questions after making a speech setting out his priorities for the Army after the military pullout from Afghanistan - due by the end of 2014.

”We do not have a brilliant track record in the Army of recruiting from certain ethnic communities across the UK,” he told the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

”If we want to sustain a fully-manned regular and reserve manpower complement then we are going to have to be better at doing that.

”In order to do that, we have got to find a way of engaging with communities which perhaps are not naturally inclined to join the soldiering profession.”

He went on: “There is of course a relationship between a number of those sorts of communities around the UK, particularly in our larger cities, and those sorts of places in the world where threats such as terrorism may emanate from.

”That could have other side benefits which could become very significant in certain situations.”