Exercise TARKASH between USA and India.

February 13, 2023

The exercise named TARKASH by the National Security Guard (NSG) and US Special Operations Forces (SOF) is underway in Chennai.
- This is the sixth edition of the exercise.
With chemical and biological warfare being recognised as a coming threat to the world, an ongoing Indo-US joint exercise has for the first time included a Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) terror response in its drill.
The objective of the joint exercise was to rapidly neutralise the terrorists, rescue the hostages safely and deactivate the chemical weapons being carried by the terrorists.
- CBRN weapons, which are also classified as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), have been used by States and terror elements in the past. The most recent use of CBRN in the form of a sarin gas attack was witnessed in Syria in 2017.
Bilateral and regional exercises include: Yudh Abhyas (Army); Vajra Prahar (Special Forces); S.-India-Japan Malabar Naval Exercise ; RIMPAC; Red Flag.
- Bilateral military exercises and defence exchanges are important aspects of deepening military-to-military cooperation.
In addition to a number of service-to-service exercises, in 2019 a tri-services exercise– Tiger Triumph– was conducted in November 2019.