Close on the heels of the largest-ever Russia-China military maneuvers, India and Russia propose to hold large scale air and land exercises in the Thar desert in mid-October, with the accent on fighting the terrorist challenge, Bernama quoted Press Trust of India (PTI) as reporting Saturday. The week-long exercises involving special para forces from the two countries would "seek to strike an inter-operability" between the land forces of the two countries for possible future operations under international peacekeeping banner in third countries, with the focus on volatile Central Asian region, the news agency quoted highly placed army sources as saying here. In the exercises, which would entail blitzkreig style anti-terrorist commando operations with the use of aircraft and helicopters, a Russian Specialized para battalion and an Indian Para battalion would be deployed, the sources said. After holding anti-terrorist war games with Indian forces, Russia proposes to hold similar war games with the Uzbekistan army, sources said. --more 1122 Local Time 0822 GMT
