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| AWACS Surveillance Planes to Start Patrols of U.S. Skies |
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FRI, OCT 12, 2001
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Some of NATO's 17 AWACS surveillance planes have arrived in the United States to help defend the country, a state department official said Thursday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the NATO planes would start patrols of U.S. skies Friday to help prevent further terrorist attacks against the U.S..
The official said five of those planes have deployed in the U.S. and will be operational Friday.
At least three of the planes are from an air base in Geilenkirchen near Germany's border with Belgium, others are based in Turkey and in other of the 19 NATO member states, he added.
Soon after the September 11 terror attacks on U.S., the NATO invoked Article V for the first time that an attack on one member country is an attack on the whole alliance. Washington submitted a list of requests to NATO, including defense of U.S. air space, ports and standing naval fleets.
"We have been attacked on our soil. We need air defense in the continental United States from Alaska to Hawaii," the state department official said.
About 5,500 people were feared killed in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.
NATO Secretary-General George Robertson, who visited Washington Wednesday, said that NATO would stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the United States in the war against terrorism.
"We stand shoulder to shoulder in a new kind of struggle, and a struggle tat we have to win," he said.
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