Expeditionary Group 'Dédalo 23' ends its participation in the activity 'Neptune Strike 23.1'

• Eight days of intense naval and air activity by the Armed Forces of fourteen allied countries.

From February 20 to 27, the Expeditionary Group 'Dédalo 23' has participated in NATO's reinforced surveillance tasks for peacetime within the framework of the 'Neptune Strike' activity. The 'Juan Carlos I', with its Harrier AV8B aircraft and helicopters, the frigate 'Blas de Lezo' and the 2nd Landing Battalion of the Tercio de Armada have collaborated with naval, air and land assets of up to fourteen other allied countries to demonstrate NATO's cohesion and test its air and naval capabilities.

Among the participants were the American aircraft carrier 'George H.W. Bush' and the Italian 'Cavour'. Bush' and the Italian 'Cavour', with whose aircraft the Navy's Harrier AV8Bs were integrated.

The 'Neptune Strike' activity has been directed from the headquarters of the "Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO" (STRIKFORNATO) in Oeiras (Portugal) and has included numerous coordinated missions between the three aircraft carriers in the skies over Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, North Macedonia, Albania, Italy and Greece.

In addition to the intense air activity, multinational amphibious activities have also been carried out on the Albanian coast, led by the 2nd Marine Landing Battalion, the same that recently provided humanitarian assistance in the Turkish city of Alexandretta, on the occasion of the earthquake that devastated the southeast of that country and northern Syria on February 6.

The Expeditionary Group 'Dédalo 23' thus reinforced for a few days the Spanish device that participates in the NATO peacetime surveillance tasks together with the Spanish Battlegroup in Latvia, the detachments of the Air and Space Army in Romania and ships integrated in the permanent groupings of the Alliance, all of them under the operational control of the Operations Command.