Australien — Brisbane soldiers join major military exercise in East Timor

Mul­ti-nation­al forces includ­ing the East Tim­o­rese Defence Force (F‑FDTL) and the Inter­na­tion­al Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Force (ISF) are par­tic­i­pat­ing in a mul­ti-lat­er­al Marine Exer­cise (MAREX) in East Tim­or.

The ISF includes sol­diers from the Bris­bane-based 8th/9th Bat­tal­ion, Roy­al Aus­tralian Regiment.

The Unit­ed States Marine Corps and the Unit­ed States Navy (USN) have joined the F‑FDTL and ISF par­tic­i­pants in Exer­cise Croc­o­dile 10, from 19 to 26 June 2010, to pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty for mul­ti-nation­al forces to work togeth­er in the plan­ning and con­duct of a com­plex mil­i­tary exercise. 

Exer­cise Croc­o­dile 10 will include weapons fir­ing skills, amphibi­ous assault seri­als, jun­gle train­ing, fly­ing oper­a­tions, and a heli­copter raid on an aban­doned prison.

The exer­cise also includes com­mu­ni­ty sup­port activ­i­ties such as recon­struc­tion and med­ical programs.

Two USN ships USS Peleliu and USS Pearl Har­bor will sup­port the exercise.

Com­man­der of the ISF, Colonel Simon Stu­art, said Exer­cise Croc­o­dile aims to fos­ter region­al secu­ri­ty, and increase readi­ness and coop­er­a­tion amongst part­ner nations.

“The Exer­cise will focus on pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment and arms corps advice to the F‑FDTL. It includes com­mu­ni­ty sup­port activ­i­ties such as engi­neer­ing sup­port­ed by the ISF and med­ical and com­mu­ni­ty rela­tions pro­grams sup­port­ed by the F‑FDTL and US military.”

The part­ner nation mil­i­tary forces will ensure there is min­i­mal inter­rup­tion or dis­tur­bance to the local com­mu­ni­ty by the fly­ing oper­a­tions and troop move­ments dur­ing the exercise.

The ISF cur­rent­ly com­pris­es around 550 per­son­nel, 400 of which are from the Aus­tralian Defence Force (ADF). The Aus­tralian com­mit­ment includes ele­ments of the 8th/9th Bat­tal­ion Roy­al Aus­tralian Reg­i­ment and sup­port ele­ments such as engi­neers, logis­tics and sup­ply per­son­nel from the wider ADF. The ISF also includes the Tim­or Leste Avi­a­tion Group (TLAG) drawn pri­mar­i­ly from the Aus­tralian 5th Avi­a­tion Reg­i­ment with Aus­tralian Black Hawk S70A‑9 heli­copters. The New Zealand com­mit­ment is from the 16th Field Reg­i­ment and 2nd/1st Roy­al New Zealand Infantry Regiment. 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia