The two day exercise being carried out by the Eastern Air Command in the eastern sector is “routine” and “planned well in advance” to the recent developments in Tawang, the IAF said on Thursday.
“Eastern Air Command of Indian Air Force shall be conducting a pre planned routine exercise in its Area of Responsibility on 15 and 16 December, 2022. This exercise was planned well in advance to the recent developments in Tawang, and is not associated with these events,” the IAF Spokesperson Wing Cdr Ashish Moghe said.
“The exercise shall be conducted towards training of IAF crew,” the spokesman added.
The two-day long major exercise to test the IAF’s war-fighting capabilities and tactics comes at a time when tension has risen again along the Line of Actual Control with China in Arunachal Pradesh following the December 9 clash between soldiers of the PLA and that of the Indian Army.
Mapping the Chinese activities, intelligence analyst Damien Symon earlier noted the increased Chinese deployment of long range surveillance drones along the LAC besides other warlike deployment.
Frequent Chinese exercises forced the IAF to scramble its war planes on a few occasions in the recent past.
