ISLAMABAD, June 30: Pakistan and US special operations forces will begin tri-services exercises involving army, navy and air force by the end of July, well-placed sources told Dawn on Sunday.
They said each of the three planned exercises, some of which would be held in August, would last about a week and would be carried out in plains, mountains and sea.
These will be the first joint tri-services exercises to be conducted between the Pakistan-US forces, and will be of a much larger scale than those India carried out with the US special forces in May.
“The operational significance of these exercises is far more as they will follow the full operational cycle of military co-ordination, planning, execution and then de-briefing,” explained a senior defence official pointing out that the Indo-US exercises confined largely to para-jumping.
Dates and specifics including the number of the participating US special operations forces in the planned “high-tech military exercises” still remain unavailable.
Pakistan’s military spokesman, Major Gen Rashid Qureshi said the other day that the joint Pakistan-US exercises were at the planning stages. “Dates and level of exercises are not finalized,” he said.
US embassy spokesman John Kincannon also confirmed on Sunday that the exercises were in the works but said he had no firm dates or other information at this point. “The US government has agreed in principle to begin conducting a number of tri-military exercises with Pakistani military and details are still being worked out,” he said when contacted by this correspondent.
These exercises were likely to be “company level” and each exercise would involve around 150 personnel from each side, reliable sources said. The personnel, these sources said, would comprise mostly commandos and infantry.
According to well-informed sources in the government these exercises are likely to take place around Jhelum, Kharian and the Sonmiani ranges, some 20 miles from Karachi.
The basic objective of such exercises is to familiarize each other with the procedures, tactics, technology and doctrines, said a defence specialist. “The idea is to know the strengths and weaknesses of the other side and to learn from them,” explained a Pakistani defence observer.
A noted Pakistani defence expert and director general of Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad, Dr Shireen Mazari, said: “In principle joint exercises with a high-tech, weapon-strengthened country is good.” However, she hoped that Pakistan would get a substantive quid pro quo in terms of equal access to their (US) modern warfare systems and new command control communications. “If we do not get the exposure to the new US military doctrine the prime beneficiary of these exercises would be the United States,” Dr Mazari cautioned.
The recent Indo-US war games, India’s largest ever with US, were seen by observers in Pakistan as an alarming signal. A sign of “deepening and widening of strategic co-operation” between the two countries that last conducted joint exercises 39 years ago.
However, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan dismissed these concerns, asserting that the co-operation between Pakistan and the United States was free of any third- party’s relationship with Washington.
Some analysts believe that US decided to undertake these exercises with Pakistan so that its “most allied ally” in the region does not feel alienated after the recent Indo-US joint military manoeuvres held in Agra.
Pakistan conducted two army exercises with the US in the Nineties. The last major army exercise code-named ‘Inspired Gambit 2’ was conducted in 1997. ‘Inspired Gambit 1’ was held earlier in 1995.
The Pakistan-US war games later this month will be held at a time when Pakistan is involved in a tense military standoff with its nuclear-armed neighbour that has a million troops amassed on the border with Pakistan.