Pakistan and India have fought three wars since their independence from British rule in 1947 and ties have been strained since an attack on the Indian city of Mumbai in November 2008 blamed on Pakistan-based militants.
But Pakistan’s Western allies, in particular the United States, want it to focus on militants who have expanded their fight from remote western regions on the Afghan border to cities and towns and across the country.
The exercise, code-named, Azm-e-Nau (New Resolve) 3, will begin on April 10 and will last until May 13 and will involve nearly 50,000 troops.
“These exercises will be focused only on conventional war on the eastern border,” Maj. Gen. Muzamil Hussain, director-general of army training, said.
Critics say while the Pakistani armed forces have been trained to deal with the threat from India, the lack capability in counter-insurgency tactics.
But Hussain rejected that and said his men were fully trained to fight the insurgency based on the western border.
“We ware aware of the threat on the western front, we have internal security issues and we can’t be oblivious to what could happen on the eastern border,” he said. “The Pakistan army has a very comprehensive process of training troops who go into the battle zone in the west.”
The exercises would be mainly focused in the central province of Punjab and the southern province of Sindh, both of which border India.
Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said India had been informed of the exercise.
The army conducted its biggest-ever exercises involving 200,000 soldiers in 1989.
