Nigeria, Partners begin Joint Maritime Military Exercise (Read m0re)
Joint maritime military exercise - Nigeria has begun a multi-lateral maritime capacity-building training exercises off its territorial waters with Special Forces from the United States, United Kingdom, the Netherlands Marines and Spanish Special Forces participating.
The Chief of Training and Operations, Nigerian Navy, Rear Admiral Olufemi Ogunjimi, told journalists Sunday in Abuja that the exercise, codenamed AFRICAN WINDS, is to further improve the capacity of the Nigerian military to deal with the numerous security challenges in the Gulf of Guinea, especially crude oil theft and attacks on merchant ships.
In addition, Admiral Ogunjimi said “it will enhance the capacity of African military forces to develop and improve their capacities to jointly plan and execute military operations in a maritime environment.
The countries covered by the programme are Morocco, Senegal, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon.”
Being carried out under the auspices of the United States-sponsored African Partnership Station (APS), the exercise has Nigerian participating troops drawn from the Army’s 81 Division, the Navy’s Special Boat Service, the Western Naval Command and the Hydrographer of the Navy, the Nigerian Air Force Special Operations Group, the 81 Air Maritime Group as well as the Naval Air Station.
The training will hold in the general area of South-West (Lagos) and South-South (Calabar) coastal areas of Nigeria.
Under the programme, the Netherland Maritime Forces is providing an amphibious logistic support ship, the HMNLS ROTHERDAM, to support the training and exercises.
The ship which carries a total of 668 troops, 4 helicopters and 6 special boats, called Landing Craft Utility (LCU) and Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (LCVP), is expected to be in Lagos from 15 – 18 October and in Calabar from 21 – 24 October.
In addition to her troop carrying capacity, the ship equally operates a hospital with two operating theatres.
The HMNLS ROTTERDAM, which has four Nigerian Navy young officers on board, has successfully conducted exercises with the armed forces of Morocco, Senegal, Ghana and Togo. She is expected to exercise with the armed forces of the Republic of Benin before arriving Nigeria on 15 October.
It also carries many Fast Raid Interception Special Forces Craft used in inserting small number of specially trained troops from sea to land particularly in creeks. The LCU is capable of carrying up to 120 fully equipped soldiers while the LCVP carries 35 Special Forces troops over a distance of 200 nautical miles. The LCUs and LCVPs are used to land troops from the sea to specific objectives on land.
pana 07/10/2013
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