Troops from countries across the Americas started a major military exercise on Friday to defend the Panama Canal from an attack by a fictional terrorist group bent on damaging the world economy.
The US-led exercise will pit more than 30 ships, dozens of aircraft and some 7,000 troops over the next week against the Liberation Martyrs' Brigade, an imaginary group with access to nonconventional weapons and perhaps even a nuclear device, officials said.
"The mission is nothing short of protecting the Panama Canal and the lines of communication that go with it," said Colombian Navy Captain Gustavo Camacho, who was participating in the maneuvers. The event, dubbed Panamax, is part of an annual exercise at the Panama Canal, which handles as much as 5 percent of world trade each year.
Panamax began in 2003 with Panama, the United States and Chile participating, but has since grown into a major multinational military exercise. Twenty countries sent military or civilian contingents to take part, the US Army said in a statement. Most of the forces came from the Americas.
Echoing real life concerns in Washington, this year's imagined enemy is allied with rebels in Colombia and Peru who have supplied crude submarines of the type sometimes used by South American drug cartels. The exercise could also have the Liberation Martyrs' Brigade try to use nonconventional weapons against other strategic targets in Central America, Camacho said.
In an effort to make the simulation as real as possible, the maneuvers include everything from a phony television news crew covering the events to a fictional UN mandate. On board the USS Tarawa, about 60 miles south of Panama City in the Pacific Ocean, US Navy Captain Brian Luther is one of the exercise's commanders who will try to track down and neutralise the terror group.