The India-U.S joint exercise in conducting coordinated operations in urban counter terrorism contingencies will conclude in Kolkata on Wednesday.
The seventh edition of the Indo-U.S. joint counter terrorism exercise ”Tarkash”, between the elite National Security Guard (NSG) and the U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) commenced on April 22.
“The three-week exercise involved intensive training and rehearsals of terrorist attacks in urban areas. The main purpose of this bilateral military training is to establish a functional relationship and improve interoperability between both special forces for organized actions against terrorists in case of urban counter-terrorism threats. It also serves as a platform for strengthening bilateral cooperation between India and the United States on issues related to all forms and manifestations of terrorism,” according to a press release.
The previous edition of the exercise was conducted at Chennai in January 2023.
“During this jointly held event, various locations within Kolkata were used by these two units in staging mock anti-terrorist drills, which were meant to harmonize their modes of operation. This mutual learning process also entailed sharing best practices, methodologies as well as tactics across multiple operational aspects such as Urban warfare including close quarter battle, Building intervention drills, Hostage rescue operations, Surveillance, Long range sniping and Planning complex operations involving multiple targets in multiple locations,” read the statement.
The NSG and the SOF conduct regular exchanges in various aspects of the counter terrorist operations, as part of bilateral mutual counter-terrorism capacity building initiatives and mechanism.