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Serbian Army Team In The “Atalanta” Mission In Somalia
Serbian Army Chief Ljubisa Dikovic said yesterday at the official farewell in “Rastko Nemanjic” military base in Pancevo, that the participants will first travel by plane to Istanbul and then to Djibouti on the coast of the Gulf of Aden, where they will board the “Carolina Scan” to start the mission.

Dikovic said that the strategic goal of Serbia is to join the EU and that the Serbian Army, carrying out its tasks, contributes to the realization of this goal. According to Dikovic, team members were carefully selected and well trained. The risk of the operation is at the intermediate level and will be reduced to a low level if the members of the Serbian Armed Forces do what they have learned and what they know.

A team of 12 members of the Special Brigade of the Serbian Army will travel today to Djibouti, where they will in a few days officially begin participation in the EU mission in Somalia.

At the ceremony the state flag of Serbia was given to the team leader Major Ivan Tanaskovic, who thanked in his name and his colleagues, and expressed belief that they will perform all tasks successfully. According to him, the team was extremely well selected and trained, and the training was also conducted in Greece and France.

Members of the Army will be hired in the mission “Atalanta” as autonomous team to protect ships. Serbian Army team will join partner forces on the ship “Carolina Scan”, whose mission is to protect ships of the organization “World program for food” and merchant ships in the area of operations.
So the EU hires forces not from the EU to perform an EU mission in Somalia. Brilliant, just brilliant...
Their task will be implementation of preventive and repressive action, which prevent armed robberies and keep waterways open for safe transport. Serbian Army already has four officers in the mission, three in Operational Command in London and one on the command ship, and they will practically welcome the team, which in the first week of December should officially start the mission aboard “Carolina Scan”.

The operation “Atalanta” is part of global initiative of the EU for resolving the crisis in Somalia, which is characterized by internal political divisions and escalating violence, and frequent hostage crisis because of piracy.
Posted by: Steve White 2013-11-29
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=380624