September 9, 2003	Tuesday	Rajab 11, 1424

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NEW DELHI, Sept 8: US special forces began exercises on Monday with their Indian counterparts in a remote high-altitude region north of Kashmir, officials said.

The three-week manoeuvres in India’s Ladakh region, which has a long border with China, are part of new military ties which India and Washington have built since the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.

Indian army officials played down the significance of the exercises, taking place as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon flew to India on a visit which some see as part of a growing relationship between Washington, New Delhi and Tel Aviv.

“These exercises are part of an ongoing process of interaction between the Indian army and the US,” said a colonel at army headquarters, adding that the two sides had engaged in similar exercises last year in the northern town of Agra.

Military analysts said the exercises in Ladakh, which is a part of Jammu and Kashmir, were designed to help the two armies share their experience and work together.

India, which is fighting a bloody insurgency in Muslim-majority Kashmir, is raising new battalions of special forces to be trained by Israeli experts and armed with Israeli assault and sniper rifles.

“It’s a give-and-take situation,” said Bharat Verma, editor of the Indian Defence Review magazine. The Americans are interested in our counter-insurgency operations. We are interested in new techniques, equipment, technology, as we expand our special forces,” he said.

“The thinking is, we must know each other if we want to work together some time in the future,” he said.—Reuters