The PLA at Home and Abroad - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

which “a group of international terrorists [about 25]
hijacked a plane in a country, took hostages and invaded
the air space of Kazakhstan. At the same time,
some international terrorists [more than 100] secretly
entered the Ili region of Xinjiang, China. They formed
an armed base and sought opportunities to commit
terrorist and violent acts.” 15 A Joint Counterterrorism
Central Headquarters, manned by the commanders
and staff from all countries, directed the operations.
The exercise emphasized intelligence collection and
reconnaissance (including satellite and electronic surveillance
and human intelligence such as gathering
information from local civilians), electronic warfare
(jamming terrorist communications), psychological
operations (dropping leaflets), helicopter movement,
special operations including hostage rescue, medical
evacuation, and application of massive firepower as
necessary.
China had proposed holding such a multilateral
SCO anti-terrorist exercise in November 2002. At the
time SCO members responded positively with the final
decision for the exercise made at the March 2003
meeting of the SCO general headquarters in Moscow.
In April, military representatives from all five countries
met in Astana and Moscow. On April 29, the five
ministers of defense signed a memorandum to conduct
the exercise. A final preparatory meeting was
held in July. 16 This was a fairly rapid planning cycle
for such a complex exercise. Other combined exercises
could take a year or more from initial proposal to execution.
A year after Coalition-2003, China and Pakistan
held their first combined anti-terrorist exercise,
“Friendship-2004,” in Tajik County, Xinjiang, on
August 6, 2004. The two countries deployed about
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