Article Posted on : - Aug 12, 2010

A file photo.

NEW DELHI (PTI): India's naval warships will be on a two-month long deployment in African coast when they will hold a trilateral exercise with navies of Brazil and South Africa, apart from carrying out anti-piracy patrols in Mauritius and Seychelles beginning this weekend.

Four warships including a destroyer and two frigates from the Navy's Western Fleet would be deployed in the Indian Ocean Region when they would also visit Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa, where the biennial IBSAMAR (India-Brazil-South Africa Maritime) exercise will be held.

A senior Navy officer said here today 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.

Indian naval destroyer INS Mysore, frigates INS Tabar and INS Ganga along with tanker INS Aditya would be sailing there when they would also patrol the Exclusive Economic Zones of Mauritius and Seychelles and carry out anti-piracy operations.

Brazil will participate in the IBSAMAR exercise with its warships, while South Africa would bring their submarines.

During the IBSAMAR exercise, to be held in September, the three navies would also perform anti-air, anti-submarine, visit-board-search-seize operations apart from other naval warfare manoeuvres such as fuelling in mid sea.

"This will be the second edition of IBSAMAR. The first edition was held in 2008. This year's exercise will be much more complex than the previous one," the officer added.

This time though there would be no aerial fleet of the Indian Navy participating in the IBSAMAR exercise, though South Africa would be bringing in their aircraft, he added.

IBSAMAR would be 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 will be the lead Navy for this edition of IBSAMAR and Brazil will take upon the role in the next edition to be held in 2012.

"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.

The western board deployment of the Navy comes a month after its warships from the eastern fleet had gone on a two-month voyage to south east Asian countries and Australia, when they called on ports in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, and Brunei.