Spanish troops joined NATO’s Patriot anti-ballistic missile deployment in Adana, Turkey on 26 January 2015, replacing a Dutch unit which had been stationed there since January 2013.

For the past two years, NATO’s Patriot deployment on Turkey’s south-eastern border has reinforced Turkey’s air defences against the threat posed by Syria’s ballistic missiles. NATO Foreign Ministers approved the mission in December 2012, after a request from Turkey. At that time, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States each deployed two Patriot missile batteries and soldiers to operate them.