Pak's April wargames to be biggest in two decades

NEW DELHI: It’s going to be a noisy western front in April, what with the Indian and Pakistani militaries slated to conduct major exercises. While India’s month-long ‘Yodha Shakti ’ kicks off in mid-April , around the same time — from April 10 to May 13 — Pakistan will conduct its ‘Azm-e-Nau-III ’ (new resolve) exercise, described as its biggest wargames in two decades, to train for a conventional war with India. The manoeuvres will be held near the border in the country’s Punjab and Sindh provinces — close to Rajasthan’s Thar desert.

Pakistan’s exercise will be massive. “It’s aimed at validating and refining newly evolved doctrines,’’ the head of Pakistan army’s military training directorate , Muzammil Hussain, said. Azm-e-Nau-III will mobilize 20,000 troops in the beginning, rising to 40,000 to 50,000 towards the end, he said.

The Indian Army, learning lessons from the slow mobilization during Operation Parakram , will practice launching self-contained and highly-mobile ‘battle groups,’ with Russian-origin T-90 S tanks and upgraded T-72 M1 tanks at their core, within 96 hours.