The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, or NATO, on Thursday deployed a fleet of five warships to the Aegean Sea to battle the menace of people smugglers and monitor the inflow of refugees into Europe from Turkey, reported The Independent.

In a press conference, NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said the fleet, currently under German command, will conduct reconnaissance, monitoring and surveillance of the illegal crossings in the region. He added that the deployment was not about stopping or pushing back refugee boats. He also said that NATO will step up its counter-terrorism efforts against the Islamic State on the Turkey-Syria border.

The move comes after Turkey and Germany sought help from NATO allies last week in monitoring the flow of migrants trying to get to Europe from Syria via Turkey and the Aegean Sea, reported Newsweek.