Advertisement
Despite the devastating rise in COVID-19 cases in India, on April 16 Kyrgyzstan welcomed a contingent of Indian troops for the 8th India-Kyrgyz Joint Special Forces Exercise “Khanjar.”
The two-week exercise was first initiated in December 2011, in Nahan, India. Broadly, it focuses on high-altitude and mountain operations, in the context of a counterterrorism mission. It remains a modest exercise, little reported or remarked upon. A 2018 report published by the Jamestown Foundation noted that the first iteration included just 20 Kyrgyz service members. Nearly four years later, in 2015, the second iteration took place in Tokmok in Kyrgyzstan (Jamestown pegs the dates to March, citing an Indian Embassy link that’s now dead. An Indian Embassy press release from 2017 states the exercise as having happened in July 2015). The Jamestown Foundation said it included an estimated 100 personnel between the two sides. Khanjar-III took place in 2016, in India, and Khanjar-IV