Maj Gen A K Dhingra Appointed First Chief of Armed Forces Special Operations Division

The tri-services formation will have Special Forces commandos from Army’s Parachute Regiment, Navy’s MARCOS and Air Force’s Garud Commando Force who will be trained together.

New Delhi: Major General A K Dhingra has been appointed as the first Chief of the Armed Forces Special Operations Division. (Also read: There’s no Record of Surgical Strike Before 2016, Says Army)

The tri-services formation will have Special Forces commandos from Army’s Parachute Regiment, Navy’s MARCOS and Air Force’s Garud Commando Force who will be trained together.

Special Operations Division will be based outside the national capital. The Army has Special Forces battalions, Navy has Marine Commandos (Marcos) and IAF has Garud. This division, which will be based at a location which already has training infrastructure, will have two SF battalions at its core, along with teams from Marcos and Garud, said reports.

In 2012, the Chiefs of Staff Committee had recommended the creation of three joint commands — in the areas of cyber, space and special operations.

The new joint military doctrine, released earlier this year, also underscores the need to prepare the defence forces for the “emerging triad” of space, cyberspace and special operations for future combat. But it was only in July this year that the Defence Secretary apprised the Unified Commanders Conference that the Defence Cyber & Space Agencies and Special Operations Division would soon become a reality.

The Special Operation Division would be tasked to deal with specific operations, which may have serious security implications for the country, sources said.

Reports said the idea of setting up such a division came up after the surgical strikes carried out by the Army in 2016, targeting several terror launchpads across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.