September 18, 2007	Tuesday	Ramazan 05, 1428

NEW DELHI, Sept 17: British troops, some of them recently deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, on Monday began a three-week exercise with Indian units in the mountainous terrain of Ladakh.

Codenamed “Exercise Himalayan Warrior”, the exercises involve elite troops of the armed forces of both countries. The high-altitude manoeuvres are being conducted after three years of interaction between Britain’s Royal Marines and the Indian Army’s High Altitude Warfare School. The exercises will end on Oct 11.

The Royal Marines are the amphibious infantry force of the British armed forces and are also trained as specialists in “mountain and Arctic warfare”.

The Ladakh exercises began as India continued joint military manoeuvres with Thailand at Ramgarh in Jharkhand. Thailand has a rich experience of defeating communist insurgents in dense jungle warfare in the 1970s.

The objective of the Jharkhand exercise, where a Maoist insurgency has been on for years, is to conduct counter-terrorism operations in hilly and jungle terrain. The exercises began on Sept 3 and will end on Sept 19.