Silchar, Sept. 4: A new batch of US Marines is scheduled to reach Mizoram this month for a special training stint in counter-insurgency skills.

The training will be imparted at the Indian army?s Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School at Vairangte in north Mizoram from September 12.

The batch will have about 50 commandos. They will go to Mizoram on Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft.

Sources at the army?s 57 Mountain Division base at Masimpur near here said this would be the sixth batch of US commandos to undertake training there since the war in Afghanistan began.

Sources said this training is part of the new US-India defence relationship, which has been described as ?inter-operability?. It stresses military co-operation between the two countries, in which both of them share strategic doctrines in order to tackle new threats from the guerrillas in this new century.

Sources added that during this training session, a top US army commander, Lt Gen. Bobby Brown, would also visit Vairengte, the gateway to Mizoram, on September 16.

He will conduct an appraisal of the training imparted by the Indian army?s counter-guerrilla experts to his country?s troops there.

Mizoram chief minister Zoramthanga, who has been invited by institute commander Brig. Rakesh Sharma to visit it for a day during the training schedule of the US troops, is likely to undertake a formal visit to hold an interaction with the trainees.

This training school is considered the largest of its kind in Asia. The institute at Vairengte is located on 560 acres of land set amid sprawling hills and dense jungles, an ideal environment for guerrillas.

Sources said such counter-guerrilla combat training along with Indian troops has been christened the Joint Combined Exercise Training (JCET), aimed at gathering proficiency in a war of domination against insurgents.

During one of the last training programme for the US soldiers at Vairengte, Indian and US army civil affairs personnel also collaborated in a community relations project at Phoinuam village near Vairengte.

Under this project, a hill footpath was converted by the combined forces into a motorable road, a soccer field was levelled, a community centre park was graded and an open sports field was built to set up a bond between the troops and the local community.