Muara, Friday 03 Aug 2007 - Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) 2007 exercise began today with an opening ceremony onboard USS JARRET. This year, the exercise focuses on the enhancement of cooperation and security capabilities, promoting joint situational awareness, information sharing and increase interoperability between U.S Navy and Royal Brunei Navy (RBN). Present during the opening ceremony were U.S Ambassador to Brunei Darussalam His Excellency Mr Emil Skodon, Fleet Commander RBN Colonel (L) Abdul Halim bin Hj Mohd Hanifah, Rear Admiral William Burke Commander of Task Force 73, and Commanding Officers of the combined task force ships.

CARAT is a series of bilateral military training exercises held annually between U.S Navy with several ASIAN nations. Brunei Darussalam is the fifth phase of 2007 series following Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Philippines. The first of such bilateral exercise was held in 1995.

This time round, U.S Navy utilizes their frigate called The USS JARRET equipped with HSL Det along with CTF 72 Orion aircrafts. Together with RBN assets, several offshore training will be conducted such as Boarding, Surface firing, Surface tracking and Search & Rescue.

Simultaneously, throughout the eight days exercise, several symposiums will also be held covering areas such as Legal, Crime Scene Investigation, Visit Board Search and Seizure, Humanitarian Assistance / Disaster Relief, Diving, Aviation and Homeland Security. Attendance to the symposiums is on invitation basis which were extended to relevant government agencies such as Royal Brunei Police Force, Fisheries Department, Customs & Excise Department and National Disaster Management Center.

In addition, two main Community Relations activities are to be conducted during CARAT 2007 with the intention of providing assistance and entertainment to Smarter Center and Pusat Ehsan on 04 and 07 Aug 2007 respectively.

Closing ceremony will be held at the same venue on 10 Aug 2007.