NEW DELHI – A joint military training exercise between the Indian and USarmies began Sunday at Chaubattia in the foothills of the Himalayas(strategic area keeping an eye on both Pakistan China border areas) inUttarakhand’s Almora district, PTI has reported.
Yudh Abhyas 2018 is one of the longest running joint military trainingexercises and a major bilateral defence cooperation endeavour between Indiaand the US.
This is the 14th edition of the joint military exercise, which is hostedalternately by the two countries.
Set to conclude on September 29, the combined exercise simulates scenarioswhere both nations are working together in counter insurgency and counterterrorism operations in mountainous terrain, a defence press release said.
The two week exercise will see the participation of about 350 personnel ofthe US Army and similar strength from the Garud Division of the Indian Army.
The exercise curriculum is progressively planned where the participantswill initially get familiar with each other’s organisational structure,weapons, equipment, confidence training and tactical drills.
Subsequently, the training will advance to joint tactical exercises andbattle drills of both the armies.
The training will culminate with a final validation exercise in whichtroops of both countries will jointly carry out an operation againstterrorists in a fictitious but realistic setting.