Military Exercises

Kazakhstani Peacekeeping Battalion soldiers learned new crowd riot control techniques yesterday, the first day of the Steppe Eagle 2014 exercise. They will use these techniques during the culminating training event which will demonstrate their ability to provide United Nations peacekeeping operations support.

Approximately 12,500 troops from Poland, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Great Britain and the United States will participate in a multi-national exercise called ‘Exercise Anakonda’. This bi-annual exercise began with an Opening Ceremony on 24th September in Warsaw.

As foreign forces in Afghanistan prepare to complete their drawdown at the end of this year, and responsibility for security falls entirely on Afghan government forces, the governments in Central Asia have been worrying and taking measures to prevent Afghanistan’s problems from becoming Central Asia’s problems also.

At least a dozen Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships are carrying out flights in Azerbaijan in the second joint Turkish-Azerbaijani military exercises conducted so far this year. The F-16 fighter jets, C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft and Super Cobra and Black Hawk helicopters reportedly arrived in Azerbaijan on Thursday to take part in what the Defense Ministry in Baku called “large-scale” exercises of its ground forces that ended on Saturday.