Army: Army & IAF conduct exercise for swift mobilisation of troops along LAC in Arunachal | India News

NEW DELHI: The Army and IAF continue to practice battle preparedness and execution of synergised contingency operations through a series of exercises in the eastern theatre, amid the heightened tensions along the entire Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.
The latest exercise called “Vayu Prahar” revolved around the mobilisation of a “rapid reaction force”, which included special forces, from the hinterland to undertake air-land operations at an advance landing ground (ALG) in high-altitude terrain conditions along the LAC in Arunachal Pradesh.

“The Army-IAF exercise was for intra-theatre air mobility operations to validate joint plans to prosecute synergised operations, with the aim to orchestrate military activities across all domains to deliver converging effects,” an officer said.
“The 96-hour exercise enabled coordination and rehearsal amongst various agencies for quick mobilisation, transportation and deployment of forces within a theatre,” he added.

While there are no signs yet of any de-escalation in the almost three-year-old military confrontation with China in eastern Ladakh, where both sides continue to forward deploy over 50,000 troops each with heavy weaponry, tensions have also spiked along the LAC stretch in Sikkim-Arunachal Pradesh since the rival troops clashed at Yangtse in the crucial Tawang sector on December 9.

The increase of troops by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the eastern sector includes two additional `combined arms brigades’, each having around 4,500 soldiers with tanks, artillery and other weapons.
The PLA has also stepped-up its activity and infrastructure development in the Bhutanese territory of Doklam near the Sikkim-Bhutan-Tibet tri-junction. The 73-day face-off at Doklam in 2017 had erupted after Indian troops blocked Chinese attempts to extend its motorable track towards the Jampheri Ridge, which overlooks the strategically-vulnerable Siliguri Corridor.