On 6-8 August 2019, the Edelweiss Military Training Centre in Balykchy, Issyk-Kul Region, Kyrgyzstan, hosted the Thunder 2019 special tactical anti-drug exercise involving units of national security agencies, interior ministries, interior ministry troops and authorised emergency management and disaster relief agencies, part of the Special Forces of the CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction Force.
The two-stage event accomplished combat training and applied missions in mountainous areas, with combined special weapons and tactics (SWAT) teams fulfilling their designated tasks. The participants focused on controlling SWAT units during preparations for joint and independent special operations to combat terrorism, extremism, transnational organised crime and drug trafficking and the conduct of such operations.
Observers from Iran, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the Executive Committee of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), the Central Asian Regional Information and Coordination Centre for Combating Trafficking of Narcotic Drugs, Psychotropic Substances and their Precursors and the EU Action against Drugs and Organised Crime (EU-ACT) project watched the exercise. Bulat Khisamutdinov, an expert from the Political Issues Department, represented the SCO Secretariat at the event.
The Collective Security Treaty Organisation was established in 2002 under the Collective Security Treaty of 15 May 1992 and includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.