Team Blitz India
The US has appreciated India’s role in anti-piracy operations to keep navigable one of the world’s busiest sea trade corridors. This came following the Indian Navy and Indian Air Force carrying out a successful operation in the Arabian Sea, capturing 35 Somalian pirates and rescuing 17 crew members of a commercial ship.
In a telephonic conversation with his India counterpart Rajnath Singh on March 18, US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin appreciated the important role being played by the Indian Navy in conducting such operations in the Indian Ocean region.
The Indian Navy, as part of the Maritime Security Operations, has been carrying out extensive surveillance in the region including monitoring of traffic in areas of Interest. Based on the analysis of surveillance information, the Indian Navy was able to track the movement of the commercial ship MV Ruen, which was hijacked by pirates in December and being used as their own vessel.
INS Kolkata, mission-deployed in the Arabian Sea, captured the pirates after over 40 hours of sustained operations on March 16. The same morning, efforts of the Indian Navy in anti-piracy operation, about 2,600 km from mainland India, were augmented by the deployment of INS Subhadra in the area. Further, Marine Commandos (PRAHARS) were air-dropped by C-17 aircraft that afternoon. Meanwhile, the pirate vessel was kept under surveillance by HALE RPA and P8I maritime reconnaissance aircraft.
During their conversation, the leaders also discussed ways and means to implement the India-US Defence Cooperation Roadmap which was concluded last year.
Other defence industrial cooperation issues such as repair of US naval ships in Indian shipyards were also briefly discussed.
Among a range of bilateral, regional security and defence cooperation issues, they reviewed the recent bilateral events such as the INDUS-X Summit held in New Delhi in February, and the bilateral Tri-Service exercise ‘Tiger Triumph’ which commenced in India on March 18. The leaders had last met in New Delhi last November during the IndiaUS Ministerial 2+2 Dialogue.
