Biggest ever Pak Army exercise from Saturday

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Army field exercise Azm-e-Nau-3, the biggest ever in the country’s history, will start from Saturday (April 10) and last until May 13, and will involve nearly 50,000 troops.

The six-week field exercise involves troops belonging to all arms and services besides engagement of various aircraft and equipment of the Pakistan Air Force.

“The exercise is a culmination of a long and deliberate process of war games, discussions and logistic evolution of the concept of warfare that is fully responsive to a wide menu of emerging threats,” Military Training Director General Maj Gen Muzammil Hussain told journalists.

Eastern border: “These exercises will be focused only on conventional war on the eastern border,” he said.

To a question about the danger posed by militants on Pakistan’s western border, he said his men were fully trained to fight the insurgency based on the western border. “We are 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,” Muzammil added.

The exercise is part of a concept validation stage of operational thought process manifested in the form of tactical, operational and organisational aspects, which will be validated and refined through the lessons learnt, he said.