India, Brazil, S Africa warships begin maritime exercise

New Delhi, Sept 10 (PTI) Indian warships on Friday began
a trilateral exercise with the navies of Brazil and South
Africa in Durban off the African coast as part of their
efforts to build inter-operability in carrying out maritime
operations.
Four warships including a destroyer and two frigates from
the Navy's Western Fleet are participating in the biennial
India-Brazil-South Africa Maritime (IBSAMAR) exercise, which
would focus on visit-board-search-seize, anti-air and
anti-submarine operations, apart from naval warfare manoeuvres
such as fuelling in mid sea.
The exercise comes in the middle of a two-month long
deployment of the Indian warships off the African coast when
they also sail to Mauritius and Seychelles for carrying out
anti-piracy patrols and visit ports in Kenya, Tanzania,
Mozambique and South Africa.
A Navy officer said here that the deployment would
provide the Indian Navy "good opportunity to re-establish and
further relations" with the navies of the African continent in
areas of training and passage exercises.
"The exercise is to develop interoperability among the
three navies so that they could carry out joint operations
during times of need in the high seas," the officer said.
Indian naval destroyer INS Mysore, frigates INS Tabar and
INS Ganga along with tanker INS Aditya have joined IBSAMAR
exercise. Brazil is participating with its warships, while
South Africa has brought their submarines.
"This is the second edition of IBSAMAR. The first
edition was held in 2008. This year's exercise is a much
more complex than the previous one," the officer said.
This time there would be no aerial fleet of the Indian
Navy participating in the IBSAMAR exercise, though South
Africa was bringing in their aircraft, he added.
IBSAMAR is being held around the South African coast and
there would be visits to Durban, Cape Town, Simon's Town and
Port Elizabeth as part of the exercise.
India is the lead Navy for this edition of IBSAMAR and
Brazil will take upon the role in the next edition to be held
in 2012. PTI NCB
RBT


The information contained in this electronic message and any attachments to this
message are intended for the exclusive use of the addressee(s) and may contain
proprietary, confidential or privileged information. If you are not the intended
recipient, you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify
the sender immediately and destroy all copies of this message and any attachments
contained in it.


Delete & Prev | Delete & Next