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Frigates join other nations in hunt for drugs

NAVAL STATION MAYPORT, Fla. — Four Navy frigates and a patrol squadron operating in the 4th Fleet area of responsibility have joined a new multi-national effort to combat illicit trafficking routes in Central America.

Called Operation Martillo — Spanish for “hammer” — it is headed by U.S. Joint Interagency Task Force-South, based in Key West, Fla., and working under U.S. Southern Command.

Officials stress that 4th Fleet is providing the U.S. naval support element, and is not commanding the operation.

“Over 80 percent of the illicit trafficking takes place by sea, and the vast majority of that goes through the littoral waters along the isthmus and up to Mexico and on to the United States,” said Rear Adm. Kurt Tidd, 4th Fleet commander. “The naval assets, the ships and aircraft bring to the table unique capabilities in detecting and monitoring criminal activities at sea and in the littorals to track the movements, by sea and air.”

The four frigates — Ingraham, based in Everett, Wash.; Elrod and McClusky of Norfolk, Va.; and Nicholas, based in San Diego — are plying the waters on either side of Central America. In addition, Patrol Squadron 1 from Whidbey Island, Wash., is providing aerial reconnaissance support flying out of El Salvador.

Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama and Colombia are all involved in the operation, Tidd said.

“The countries are using their forces to target [the traffickers],” he said. “Our forces are in direct support of those partner nations, helping with surveillance capability and engaging in coordinated operations to interdict this traffic flow.”

Though Tidd said the mission is to target and interdict mostly cocaine shipments to the United States, the ships also are looking for illicit shipments of any kind, a recent expansion of U.S. counter-drug operations.

International crime organizations, he said, often turn drug profits into other illicit cargo and smuggle that back south. Stopping their cash flow by capturing that cargo is just as important as interdicting the narcotics heading north, Tidd said.

“It’s not an easy mission, as you are searching for an adversary who’d rather not be found,” Tidd said. “It’s also an adversary who is extremely agile and adaptive, and to succeed, all he has to do is avoid us.”