A new vessel, specially designed for intelligence services and surveillance, has arrived in Norway. The hull of the vessel arrived in Ålesund in Møre and Romsdal County this last weekend. High-tech equipment will be installed before the ship is ready for use. “This vessel is built for the northern areas, and its tasks will be to monitor all activity up there, both civil and military, so that the Norwegian government can get as complete a picture as possible of what is going on,” says chief of the Intelligence Services, Kjell Grandhagen.The ship, which has not been named yet, will be staffed with personnel from the Norwegian Intelligence Services. However, no exact names and what they will be doing will be revealed to the public.
Grandhagen explains that most of Norwegian Intelligence is about monitoring what goes on. “There may be events somewhere else in the world that involve some of the superpowers that are located in our area, and that will have consequences in our area although we are in no way part of that conflict,” he says.
Norway’s current intelligence service vessel, “Marjata,” has been in use for almost 20 years, and Parliament decided that it was to time to have a new one made. The hull of the ship that arrived in Ålesund on Sunday was built in Romania and towed to Norway.
(NRK/norwaypost)
