US Navy, over 35 partners commence International Maritime Exercise 2025

The Middle East region’s largest maritime exercise, International Maritime Exercise (IMX) 2025, kicked off in two locations, Bahrain and Jordan, on Monday, February 10.

The week began with academic discussions covering a series of topics including the naval planning process, maritime operations centre procedures, and disaster response coordination.

IMX25 is a 12-day naval training event hosted by US Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT).

This year’s iteration of IMX is linked with exercise Cutlass Express. Cutlass Express, led by US Naval Forces Europe-Africa, is an annually scheduled exercise designed to enhance regional maritime awareness and the combined capabilities of partner nations to respond to maritime threats.

The exercises are linked through information sharing between maritime operations centres to strengthen theatre-to-theatre coordination, reducing regional seams and strengthening US and partner nation capabilities and interoperability.

More than 5,000 personnel from more than 35 nations and international organisations will take part in both exercises.

The operational phase will include partner exchanges on mines and mine countermeasures; visit, board, search and seizure; unmanned systems and artificial intelligence integration; explosive ordnance disposal; vessel defence; search and rescue; and mass casualty response, among other focus areas.