By Thai Newsroom Reporters
THE UNITED STATES and Philippine air forces are scheduled for later this month to conduct a joint air exercise over the latter’s exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea.
Code-named Cope Thunder, the joint US-Philippine air exercise is scheduled from Apr. 8 until Apr. 19, marking the first bilateral drill of its kind this year, according to an air force source.
The joint air exercise between US and Philippine fighters and other combat aircraft is coming up amidst sustained maritime provocations and standoffs between the island republic’s and China’s naval forces in vicinity of submerged reefs in the South China Sea including those unilaterally claimed by Manila as being in the Philippine exclusive economic zone.
Participating in Cope Thunder are the US air force’s fighters, namely Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon and Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, alongside the Philippine air force’s South Korean-built FA-50 Fighting Eagle light attack jets and other combat aircraft, the air force source said.
Earlier this year, one of the US air force’s Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers took part in a joint air exercise and patrol with the Philippine air force’s FA-50s over the tension-filled South China Sea.
For the upcoming joint air exercise, a couple of the US air force’s B-52s from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean might probably repeat it to make it a relatively large-scale airborne drill between the US and one of the superpower’s major allied countries in the southwest Pacific region.
An upgraded Basa air base northwest of Manila will be used to facilitate the air exercise for both the US and Philippine combat aircraft. The air base upgrades have been largely financed by Washington.
Cope Thunder is being conducted between the US and Philippine air forces amidst sustained tensions between the island republic and China primarily involving mutually contradictory claims of territorial integrity over a number of reefs and atolls around the Spratlys Islands.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has issued a statement to reassure the Asean member country’s unfaltering commitment to countering “illegal, coercive, aggressive and dangerous attacks” by the Chinese Coast Guard and other naval forces which had recently fired water cannons at a Philippine naval vessel on a resupply mission off Scarborough Shoal.
CAPTIONS:
Top: In this handout photo released by the Philippine Air Force, a Philippine Air Force FA-50PH jet fighter joins the maritime patrol of the Philippines and the United States over Batanes and areas in the West Philippine Sea on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023. Photo: Philippine Air Force via AP and published by Military.com
Front Page: Aircraft of the Philippine Air Force and the US Indo-Pacific Command participate in the joint Philippines-US Maritime Cooperative Activity in the vicinity of Batanes and an area of the South China Sea that falls within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines on Nov. 21, 2023. Photo: Reuters/Philippine Air Force/Handout via Reuters and published by Jakarta Post
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