Friday, March 2, 2012

No base of US Special Forces in India: Defence Ministry

In a clear message to the US, New Delhi on Friday categorically stated that the US Special Forces neither had any base in the country nor they are presently stationed here.

India’s response has come in the wake of a top Pentagon commander and US Pacific Commander Admiral Robert Willard stating that the Special Forces teams were deployed to help India with their counter-terrorism co-operation. Willard said that the two countries were working together against Paksitan-based terrorist organization Laskar-e-Toiba, responsible for the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.




Indo-US troops during joint Exercise Yudh Abhyas at Babina in Madhya Pradesh in 2009

Denying the claims of the US Commander, Ministry of Defence in a statement said: “The Ministry of Defence has come across  a press report relating to remarks attributed to an US Armed Forces official on the positioning of US Special Forces teams in various South Asian countries, including India. The report is factually incorrect in so far as the reference to India is concerned.”

Defence Ministry spokesperson Sitanshu Kar went on to say: “US Special Forces Teams have never been stationed in India in the past, nor are such teams stationed in the country presently.”

According to sources, the US 25th infantry division was in India to conduct a joint military exercise with the Indian Army.

Admiral Willard had said that besides Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives, the troops were stationed in India as well.

"We are working very closely with India with regard to their counter-terrorism capabilities and in particular on the maritime domain but also government to government, not necessarily department of defence but other agencies assisting them in terms of their internal counter-terror and counterinsurgency challenges,” Willard had said.

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