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U.S. Seeks Air Surveillance Help From European Allies
Washington has put forward the first concrete request of military help to its European allies, asking to borrow five AWACS surveillance planes from NATO, according to a local press report.
The "Frankfurter Allgemeine" reports in its Sunday edition that the U.S. request was formally submitted to NATO on Friday afternoon, in which the planes from the NATO multi-national AWACS wing will be used to safeguard the Northern American airspace so that U.S. planes can be freed for missions in the Middle East.
The request will be examined over the weekend by the NATO Military Commission and approved by the NATO Council early next week, the paper said.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, NATO has pledged to help the United States, recalling Article 5 in its founding treaty, which calls for collective defense against outside attack.
German officials believe that the use of NATO planes to help survey U.S. space instead of that over Afghanistan, is a "clear signal" that Washington dose not want its allies to get into its way of planning the upcoming military strike, the paper said.
The NATO AWACS planes are mainly stationed in the Geilenkirchen base, near Aachen, Germany. One quarter of the servicemen are also Germans.
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