East Cape hosts joint SA and US military exercise from today

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

Multinational war games involving South African and United States armed forces are playing out in the Eastern Cape.

It will involve a loud mock battle near Alicedale on Thursday.

A parachute drop by airborne forces near Bulembu, a beaching near East London and action at several other locations in the Eastern Cape and as far afield as De Aar and Gariep are also included in the two-week exercise.

Some 2 500 South African and 700 US military personnel have been deployed for the operation, with a strong focus on humanitarian assistance.

The Deputy Commander for the US Army in Africa, Brigadier-General Peter Corey, explains the main goals of Exercise Shared Accord.

"Our main goals during this exercise are to increase the inter-operability between our two forces and to gain mutual understanding of how each of us conducts our operations, tactics, techniques and procedures. We expect that we will return to South Africa probably in 2015 to conduct a similar or slightly different exercise" he said