Indian Military

NEW DELHI: With Chinese troops continuing with their aggressive "transgressions'' across the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the Army wants the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) to be placed under its "operational control'' for better border management.
Defence ministry sources said the Army contends India's border management posture will acquire the much-needed "cohesion, coordination and synergy'' required to counter the People's Liberation Army's "offensive'' posture if ITBP is placed under its jurisdiction.
The Army feels such a step will prove operationally productive as well as ensure optimal utilisation of resources especially in eastern Ladakh where ITBP, one of the seven central police forces under the home ministry, is responsible for border management of 826 km of the LAC.
The Army is also present in depth along that stretch but it can exercise operational control over ITBP only during the outbreak of hostilities.

NEW DELHI: China is "aggressively" shoring up its military capabilities along the borders with India, defence minister A K Antony said on Tuesday.
"I agree with you on that China is aggressively building its capabilities in its areas. In the past, India was negligent in strengthening its capabilities in the eastern sector, "he told reporters when asked about China strengthening its military set-up along the Line of Actual Control.
Instead of "grumbling" over the issue, India has started modernising it own capabilities by taking steps such as raising new Army divisions and Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs) for aircraft operations, he said on the sidelines of the Coast Guard Commanders' Conference here.
Asked about recent incursions taking place from the Chinese side, the minister said this was due to differences in perception of boundary which was not properly demarcated.
He went on to add that the overall situation along the border was "peaceful".

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani military will shoot down any US drone that intrudes the country's airspace under a new defence policy in which troops have been given greater liberty to respond to incursions by Nato and allied forces in Afghanistan, according to a media report.
"Any object entering into our airspace, including US drones, will be treated as hostile and be shot down," a senior unnamed Pakistani military official was quoted as saying by NBC News.
The defence policy was changed after a Nato air strike on two military border posts killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on November 26.
Following the air strike, army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani issued a communique that gave troops in the field full liberty to respond to any future attacks without consulting their superiors.
Kayani issued multiple directives since the November 26 attack, including orders to shoot down US drones, senior military officials said.
Pakistan also shut down all Nato supply routes and asked the US to vacate the Shamsi airfield in Balochistan province by December 11.

BOGOTA: Leftist guerrillas killed 12 Colombian army troops on Monday and wounded four others in an ambush in a rural area in the northern tip of Colombia near the border with Venezuela, authorities said.
"Unfortunately we have received reports of 12 soldiers dead and four wounded," said Yusti Maria Lopez, a security official in Maicao, the capital of the department of La Guajira.
The ambush occurred in the Serrania de Perija mountain range in an area known as La Majayura, the official said.
"Regional and national officials are drawing up a toll. We aren't ruling out that there were guerrilla dead too, but that's being analyzed by the army," Lopez said.
Numerous indigenous communities live in the Guajira peninsula.
Local mayor Eurpides Pulido condemned the attack, which rocked a quiet and isolated area in which indigenous ethnic Wayuu, Kogi, Ika, Kankuamo and Wiwa people live.
On the heels of the strike, President Hugo Chavez in neighboring Venezuela, ordered border security beefed up.

WASHINGTON: The Obama administration is laying out a new multiyear, multibillion-dollar military aid package for Pakistan as it presses the Islamabad government to step up the fight against extremists there and in neighboring Afghanistan, US officials say.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi were to unveil the plan Friday at the end of the latest round of high-level US-Pakistani strategic talks here, the officials said.

The money will be provided over the next five years under the State Department's Foreign Military Financing program that funds other countries' purchases of US-made arms, ammunition and accessories, the officials said. Precise details of what Pakistan will receive under the program were still being determined, they said.

The officials would speak only on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement, which the administration hoped would reassure Pakistan of the long-term US commitment to Pakistan's military needs and help it bolster its efforts to go after Taliban and al-Qaida affiliates on its territory.

[TOI] NEW DELHI: China continues to intrude into Indian territory in the real as well as virtual worlds with sheer impunity. Along with mounting cyber-attacks, China persists in needling India all along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control (LAC). At least three incursions by motorised armed patrols of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in the strategically-located Trig Heights and Pangong Tso lake were recorded during last week, said sources on Monday.