Armed forces carry out week-long joint exercise

With the November 26 terror strikes exposing the vulnerabilities of India's coastline, the country's armed forces are carrying out a week-long joint exercise off the Gujarat coast in which they would validate concepts to counter such threats in the future.

With the November 26 terror strikes exposing the vulnerabilities of India's coastline, the country's armed forces are carrying out a week-long joint exercise off the Gujarat coast in which they would validate concepts to counter such threats in the future.

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Defence Ministry sources told PTI in New Delhi on Thursday that the amphibious exercise would use the assets and personnel of the Army, Navy, Air Force and the Coast Guard, and practice manoeuvres and operations to prevent terrorist attacks of the Mumbai-kind.

"Considering that the Mumbai attacks took the sea route to reach their targets, we have included an operational element in the exercise to fight the menace," sources said here.

Christened TROPEX-09 (Theatre Level Operational Readiness Exercise), this effort would be one of the largest exercises involving amphibious warfare elements in the recent years.

Though such exercises are an annual affair, this year's exercise gained importance in content and magnitude in view of the Mumbai attacks, sources said.

Nearly 15,000 personnel of the armed forces would be trained in fighting "conventional as well as asymmetric" warfare, involving non-state actors, sources said.