SINGAPORE, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- Navies from six Southeast Asian nations, together with the United States Navy, are taking part in an annual anti-terror maritime exercise, Singapore's Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

    The Southeast Asia Cooperation Against Terrorism (SEACAT) exercise, which was first held in 2002, started from last Friday and ends on Thursday with navies from Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand and the Philippines.

    The drill is a series of annual exercises to enhance maritime information-sharing and the coordination of maritime security responses between the several parties, said the defense ministry in a statement.

    The Singapore leg of the exercise, from Aug. 18 to 20, involves the Navy, Police Coast Guard, Maritime and Port Authority, and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority.

    Officers from the Singapore Navy and their foreign counterparts were on board a U.S. Naval platform analyzing data to create a shared maritime picture for enhanced situational awareness.

    Other drills involved boarding a U.S. civil resource ship participating in the exercise as merchant vessels suspected of terrorist activities.