"The increased NATO presence in the Mediterranean has also enhanced the Alliance's security cooperation programme with seven countries in the wider Mediterranean region -" Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. This programme - the Mediterranean Dialogue - was set up in 1995 to contribute to regional security and stability and to achieve better mutual understanding between NATO and its Mediterranean Partners.
"The operation is under the overall command of Joint Forces Command (JFC), Naples, and is conducted from the Allied Maritime Component Command Naples, Italy (CC-Mar Naples) through a Task Force deployed in the Mediterranean. Occasionally, transiting ships and aircraft provide additional associated support to the operation." [15]
Active Endeavor is one of eight components resulting from the U.S.-dominated alliance's activation of its Article 5 collective military assistance provision after September 1, 2001.
At its 2004 summit in Istanbul, Turkey, NATO expanded the surveillance and interdiction mission as well as adopting the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative to elevate Mediterranean Dialogue partnerships with Egypt, Israel, Algeria, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia to the level of the Partnership for Peace program that graduated twelve Eastern European nations to full NATO membership from 1999-2009.
Last November Alliance Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper that NATO is ready to dispatch troops to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, stating: "If a Middle East peace agreement is reached, an international military force will be needed to monitor and implement it." [16] The same source revealed that "The North Atlantic Council - NATO's most senior governing body - also announced it would launch bilateral relations (in contrast to collective ties) with Israel and the six Arab states that comprise the Mediterranean Dialogue."
Israel is the only Middle Eastern nation not in Central Command's area of responsibility (it is assigned to U.S. European Command) - as Egypt is the only African country not in U.S. Africa Command's - and is all but officially NATO's 29th member state. [17]
A few months before, Rasmussen visited Jordan and Bahrain to pressure the host countries to "contribute to alliance naval operations...in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf of Aden," Operation Active Endeavor and Operation Ocean Shield, respectively. [18]
In the previous month twelve warships attached to an enlarged Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 (SNMG2) began what were identified as surge operations in the Eastern Mediterranean. "SNMG2 has been reinforced with additional ships which, along with submarine and air surveillance assets, will ensure sweeping coverage from Crete to the far-eastern reaches of the Mediterranean Sea." That its operations are being augmented by Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft and submarines marks a dramatic escalation of NATO strength in the region. [19]
In the month before the naval buildup in the Eastern Mediterranean, five ships from the Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 docked in Casablanca "to boost ties with Morocco."
"A joint training session between NATO forces and the Moroccan navy is also planned, according to the Dutch commander of SNMG2, Michiel Hijmans, who will be in Casablanca for the Sept. 16-19 visit.
"SNMG2 regularly participates in the Active Endeavour Operation...in the Mediterranean." [20]
After being feted at NATO Headquarters and at the home of the bloc's Military Committee chairman last week, Israel's Chief of General Staff Ashkenazi said that mounting demonstrations in Egypt "could force Israel to adapt to a new security reality in the Middle East."
"The quiet is fragile and the security reality can easily change," he said on the sidelines of a military exercise in the south of Israel. "It is enough to look at what is happening in Egypt to understand this." [21]
Ashkenazi added that the Israel Defense Forces were maintaining a "watchful eye" on the Gaza Strip adjoining Egypt.
Shaul Mofaz, the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman and a former defense minister, "said that Israel would need to conduct a new strategic review due to the possibility of a regime change in Egypt." [22]
In addition to U.S. Sixth Fleet, NATO and Israeli naval forces in the Eastern Mediterranean, NATO nations are also deployed there as part of the UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) Maritime Task Force, which since 2006 has run an effective blockade of Lebanon's Mediterranean coast. Currently there are three German, one Greek, one Italian and one Turkish ship assigned to the mission. Other nations that have contributed to the interdiction operation include Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Turkey.
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