A military ceremony was held at the National Defence Ministry on Friday, September 10, for the newly created Defence Intelligence Brigade, a large unit in the operational coordination of the Defence Intelligence General Directorate.

Defence minister Gabriel Oprea handed over the Unit Flag while the troops took an allegiance oath to the Unit Flag.

Present at the event were the Minister of Administration and Interior, Vasile Blaga, the Minister of Justice, Catalin Predoiu, the Minister of Finance, Gheorghe Ialomitianu, the Minster of Labor, Family and Social Protection, Ioan Nelu Botis, presidential adviser, Iulian Fota, senators and deputies, representatives of the Presidential administration and the Romanian Orthodox Church, the U.S. Ambassador, Mr. Mark Gitenstein, the Director of Intelligence of NATO, Karen Laino, defence attaches of NATO member states, civil and military officials in the defence system, public order and national security.

The defence minister’s speech highlighted the complexity and importance of activities conducted by intelligence detachments in the theaters of operations, carried out by troops dedicated to fulfilling our country’s international commitments.

'I strongly believe that today’s ceremony marks the accomplishments of the entire defence intelligence structure. I thank the personnel of this unit, the command of the Defence Intelligence Brigade for the hard work and efforts in proving once more the strength of the expert team we have and the reliable ally we are', the defence minister said.

The troops of the Special Detachment for Protection and Intervention, subordinated to the Defence Intelligence General Directorate, presented alongside the Emergency Military Medical Service a demonstrative exercise. The exercise presented typical procedures for their area of responsibility, a test of the speed of reaction of the emergency medical service to first said measures.

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In over 150 years of existence, the defence intelligence activity had an important contribution to promoting and defending the national Romanian interests. After its establishment in 1999, the Defence Intelligence General Directorate underwent an ample transformation process, adapting its forces and missions to a different kind of security context. The effects of the process are visible in the success in the theaters of operations of Afghanistan, Iraq and Western Balkans of structures such as HUMINT (HUman INTelligence – defence intelligence collected and supplied by human resources), IMINT (IMagery INTelligence – defence intelligence resulting from collecting, processing and analyzing images) and SIGINT (SIGnals INTelligence – defence intelligence analyzing communications in the electromagnetic space) belonging to the Defence Intelligence General Directorate.

The establishment of the Defence Intelligence Brigade is an objective necessity deriving from the missions accomplished. It is an integrated structure, flexible and highly responsive meant to augment the intelligence support of decision factors. Three of the soldiers that died, 1st Lieutenants (post-mortem) Iosif-Silviu Fogorasi, Mihail-Anton Samuila and Narcis Sonei belonged to intelligence detachments. They sacrificed their lives while carrying out HUMINT missions in Afghanistan.

MoND Press Office