India, Brazil, S Africa conduct joint naval exercise

Durban (PTI): India, Brazil and South Africa have started a 10-day long joint naval exercise here aimed at tackling terrorism at sea.

The exercise called IBSAMAR, which started on Monday along the Cape Town will continue till May 15.

India's INS Mumbai and INS Karmukh will take part in the event, which includes the very basic to the most advanced, and involving submarines and aircraft.

South Africa, India and Brazil, who form part of the new forum IBSA, will sport their biggest frigates and test the latest electronic systems against each other in a simulated war situation.
South African Navy captain, Charl Coetzee said: "We have a series of exercises we'll do at sea, both from surface warfare perspective, boarding and we'll be doing some anti-terrorist drills and flying operations. Over the weekend and in the next week a similar series of exercises will take place between the naval ships of our three countries."

Ajit Kumar, captain of INS Mumbai, said they wanted to share their best practices with the South African and Brazilian navies. He said the Indian Navy had a wealth of experience in this regard. "For example at the end of 2006 we were able to work with Sri Lankan and Nepalese navies during the Lebanon conflict. We've also played an active role during the tsunami of 2004 where tremendous amount of resources from the Indian Navy was used," he said.
Captain Onias de Castro Lima of Brazil said, "With this exercise we want to obtain better co-operation between our different navies and implement some of the expertise we have in our navy. We intend to share experiences and to share our knowledge in helicopters and with submarines."