China now has commandos on horseback to tackle terrorism

BEIJING: China has unveiled a new anti-terrorist commando unit for Xinjiang trained to carry out operations on horseback, days after a government policy paper said there was no terror attacks in the province for the past three years.

The elite Mountain Eagle Commando (MEC) counterterror group took part in a drill with military personnel from Kyrgyzstan earlier this month, following which the first ever, and lengthy, report on it was published in one of China’s top state-run newspapers, Cankao Xiaoxi or Reference News - run by China’s official news agency, Xinhua - on Tuesday.

This is China’s third commando operations unit focussed on countering terrorism. The Guangzhou-based Snow Leopard unit was set up in 2002 and the Beijing-based Falcon unit has been operational since 1982.

The name Mountain Eagle is from the unit's designated battlefields: mountains and plateaus. The unit’s insignia is a flying mountain eagle with its beak pointed to the ground and claws open, said the report. It was established by the Chinese People’s Armed Police (PAP).

The head of the PAP in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) told Cankao Xiaoxi (in Chinese) that it was established in the backdrop of military reforms in China.

It was “…born in the context of the military reform, and was born to meet the needs of Xinjiang and even the nation’s anti-terrorist mission,” the PAP head said, adding that the reason for the use of this new anti-terrorism special force, which was formed shortly before and has never appeared in the public’s view, is to allow them to accept difficult, high-intensity missions.

The new unit went through “rigorous assessment and evaluation” by higher military authorities following which the commandos have been given permission carry out combat missions.