U.S. Navy-ASEAN exercise: "The U.S. Navy has begun with its annual Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training SEACAT exercise.
The 2011 operation, which began Wednesday and runs through next Friday, is the 10th in the series of annual multilateral maritime operations. The Navy is operating in conjunction with ASEAN members the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, Radio Free Asia reported.
The geographical breadth of the operation is wide-ranging, including exercises in the Malacca Strait, Sulu and Celebes Seas.
More than 50,000 vessels ply the 621-mile Malacca Strait each year, carrying half of the world's oil shipments carried by sea.
The SEACAT operation is intended to enhance maritime information-sharing and the regional coordination of maritime security responses. During the exercise, the navies involved in SEACAT will undertake drills to include tracking maritime vessels as well as boarding of U.S. civilian shipping simulating international merchant vessels suspected of engaging in maritime terrorist related activities.
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