By Tan Guan Wei
Naval officers, security experts and International Liaison Officers (ILOs) from countries like Australia, Indonesia, Thailand and the United States joined their Singapore counterparts at the Information Fusion Centre (IFC) in Changi Naval Base for a maritime security workshop on 27 Apr, to commemorate the IFC's third anniversary.
In his opening address, Head IFC Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Nicholas Lim said: "In the span of three years, we have made significant strides towards our growth, having expanded our linkages from 14 countries in 2009, to 46 agencies in 29 countries."
He added: "The ILO initiative is indeed a useful and unique framework as the ILOs play important roles as the points of contact for their respective countries, providing a real-time reach-back in terms of information sharing and analysis."
The IFC has had numerous successes in resolving incidents occurring on the territorial waters of the participating countries. In January this year, the IFC received news about a tugboat, named Sin Hin 5, that was reported missing by its owners but was found sailing towards the eastern part of Malaysia. In response, the IFC swiftly passed the information to the Indonesian ILOs and the perpetrators were apprehended by the Indonesian Navy within two days.
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