British spy plane tracks rogue vessel before dramatic capture

GAP'S STRATEGIC 'CHOKEHOLD'

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THE Marinera was sailing through the GI-UK Gap, which has been a key naval choke point in the North Atlantic since the Second World War.

The acronym stands for Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap, and it separates the Norwegian Sea and the northern North Sea from the vast expanse of the Atlantic. In the Second World War, German ships used the gap to break out from ports in northern Germany and occupied Norway to attack Allied convoys.

And during the Cold War, the gap was the only available route into the Atlantic Ocean for Soviet submarines operating from their bases on the Kola Peninsula. The GI-UK gap features in several spy novels, including Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October - later turned into a hit movie starring Sir Sean Connery, about a rogue Russian sub whose officers were defecting to the UK.

In the film, an American military chief tells the Soviet ambassador: "Your aircraft have dropped enough sonar buoys so that a man could walk from Greenland to Iceland to Scotland without getting his feet wet."

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and other naval vessels on Wednesday morning to defend the tanker as it tried to evade Donald Trump's Venezuela blockade.

But Moscow's last-ditch efforts were thwarted when US troops boarded the vessel hours later.

Britain said it provided "enabling support" to the Americans.

The Ministry of Defence said the UK provided a RC-135 Rivet Joint spy plane to intercept signals intelligence from the ship, flown by RAF pilots and manned by civilian spooks from GCHQ.

US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described the operation as "meticulously coordinated".

A spokesman for US European Command said in a statement: "This seizure supports @POTUS Proclamation targeting sanctioned vessels that threaten the security and stability of the Western Hemisphere."