Italian naval vessel joins UNIFIL's MTF

The UNIFIL's Maritime Task Force (MTF) inducted Wednesday a new ship from Italy into its fleet. In press statement, the UNIFIL Force Commander Major-General Paolo Serra welcomed the arrival of the ship in a ceremony held at the port in Beirut in the presence of representatives of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) as well as diplomats and officers from UNIFIL troop contributing countries. The ship 'Andrea Doria' is a multi-role vessel that comes with 237 Italian naval peacekeepers. Italy has been a significant contributor to UNIFIL Maritime Task Force (MTF) since its deployment in October 2006 to support the Lebanese Navy in preventing the unauthorized entry of arms or related material by sea into Lebanon as well as to provide training to the Lebanese Navy. Since 2006 Italy has contributed three times to UNIFIL Maritime Task Force and withdrew its naval force in 2010. The Maritime Task Force was deployed at the request of the Lebanese government within the mandate of United Nations Security Council resolution 1701 (2006). The operational control of MTF has been delegated by UNIFIL Force Commander to the MTF Commander. The MTF performs a dual mandate of carrying out maritime interdiction operations and providing training to the Lebanese Navy. Since the start of its operations on 15 October 2006, MTF has hailed around 54,156 ships and referred about 4,209 vessels to the Lebanese authorities for further inspections. With today's addition to its fleet, UNIFIL-MTF now comprises nine naval units from Bangladesh (2 ships), Brazil (1 ship - Flag Ship), Germany (2 ships), Greece (1 ship), Indonesia (1 ship), Italy (1 ship) and Turkey (1 ship).