A unit of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) held a military exercise lasting several days in which it tested the synergistic command and battle capabilities of the navy, army and air force, the PLA Daily reported on Wednesday.

The newspaper said the drill, which ended on Tuesday, was organized by the Jinan Military Area Command and involved more than 10 squadrons from the three forces garrisoned in the command. The drill was also the first cross-regional exercise, which spanned an area from the Shandong Peninsula to Liaodong Peninsula.

The newspaper didn't say how many days the exercise lasted.

Land-land, land-air, air-sea, air-air and electromagnetic confrontations were designed for the drill, and missile destroyer, frigate and fighter aircraft were all involved.

Maj.-Gen. Ma Yiming, chief director of the drill, said the exercise was intended mainly to explore how to improve, under current circumstances, the forces' synergistic abilities in data collection, command and control, firepower, electronic confrontation and logistics.

Dubbed "Joint-2008", the exercise would build up data and experience for the various armed forces' coordination and personnel training, military experts were cited by the report as saying.

(Xinhua News Agency September 24, 2008)