Indian Army Special Forces to get American assault rifles, parachutes

In a major boost to the firepower of Army's elite Special Forces, India is going to buy assault rifles, ammunition, and several other specialised equipment from the United States.

"Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is going to chair an important meeting where the proposal to buy the equipment worth over Rs 1,000 crore from the American Department of Defence is expected to be discussed," sources told ANI.

"The meeting is likely to discuss an array of equipment including assault rifles, ammunition and combat free fall parachutes for the Special Forces units of the Parachute Regiment of the Army," sources said.

"If the proposal goes through, the equipment would be acquired from the United States in a government-to-government deal under the Foreign Military Sales route," they said.

The Indian Army already has American M4A1 assault rifles, which have been specially used in counter-terrorist operations and they have been successful.

The Army is also looking at buying more carbines for the Special Forces in the form of Belgian rifles which are used by the Special Protection Group (SPG) guarding the Prime Minister, which are easy to carry.

For long, the Army has been working to modernise its Special Forces which have been very effective in counter-terrorist operations and were also used to carry out cross border raids on Pakistan two years ago.

India is buying the equipment from the US after its planes hit targets in Balakot in Pakistan as they destroyed a Pakistani terrorist training camp there in retaliation to the terror attack on CRPF jawans in Pulwama on February 14.