Countering challenges: Gen Raheel tells troops to prepare for threats

Inaugurates Church in Bahawalpur garrison, witnesses military exercise

RAWALPINDI: As the military launched a final push against militants in North Waziristan, Army chief General Raheel Sharif on Thursday said that all available means must be used to ensure troops are prepared to counter any threat.

“All available means must be utilised to improve the operational capability of the Army to effectively respond to full spectrum of threat,” Gen Raheel said as he visited troops participating in an exercise near Bahawalpur and Multan.

“Strenuous training and highest standard of preparedness in peacetime are the only guarantors of peace.”

According to a statement from the Inter Services Public Relations, the military’s media wing, Gen Raheel on Thursday arrived in Bahawalpur and Multan on a two-day visit to oversee the final phase of a military training exercise near Fort Abbas and Dingarh in the Cholistan desert.

He will spend the night with troops in Bahawalpur.

The exercise includes offensive and defensive manoeuvres to completely dominate the battlefield using infantry, mechanised forces, combat aviation and the Pakistan Air Force. The exercise has been designed to test operational capability of field formations in near-war environment.

Earlier, upon his arrival in Bahawalpur, Gen Raheel was received by Corps Commander Lt Gen Javed Iqbal. He also inaugurated the newly constructed Church and soldiers’ mess at Bahawalpur garrison.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 26^th, 2016.