King Abdullah II initiates a modernization campaign for his nation’s military forces
BRIG. GEN. FAHAD FALEH AHMAD AL-DAMEN, JORDAN ARMED FORCES
In an October 2016 letter to Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Freihat, newly appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Jordan Armed Forces (JAF), His Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al Hussein of Jordan called for changes to the country’s military. King Abdullah said the challenges of terrorism demand a “full review” of changes necessary to modernize the JAF. In particular, he emphasized the need to coordinate among all security organizations, modernize the Border Guards, and improve living conditions for JAF personnel.
King Abdullah’s letter gives Gen. Freihat permission to appoint a new generation of commanders eager to adopt new ideas and new technology to defeat threats such as Daesh militants operating in Iraq and Syria. The king’s vision for the military is a professional, mobile force at ease in the digital age.
Army commanders such as myself realize the king’s letter is part of an extensive campaign to modernize Jordan’s Armed Forces and combat extremist groups militarily and ideologically. In recent years, the kingdom has invested in upgraded weapons and equipment, increased participation in cooperative training exercises, installed advanced border surveillance systems, and integrated more women into its Armed Forces — all while promoting the Islamic values espoused in the king’s 2004 Amman Message.
Upgraded equipment
In recognition of the changing threat posed by extremist organizations, Jordan has worked to improve and adapt its equipment and upgrade its weapons systems. Among other changes, Gen. Freihat could put less emphasis on heavy armored formations, designed for a different age in which tank armies played a larger role in national defense. In replacing tracked vehicles, the JAF is considering adopting more wheeled armored personnel carriers.
My nation received 16 of an eventual 50 donated German Marder 1 infantry fighting vehicles in December 2016. The German Defense Ministry said the vehicles, delivered along with 70 trucks and 56 minibuses, would help reinforce the JAF in its fight against Daesh. The delivery represents a vote of confidence in Jordan as a regional security leader.
Like our neighbors in the Middle East and South and Central Asia, Jordan has actively participated in joint training exercises to build a professional military and coordinate its responses to threats posed by terror groups like Daesh. Along with the multinational cooperation among governments, civil institutions and militaries, these trained armies are crucial to rooting out terror networks in the region and around the world. I personally played a role in this as the JAF’s former director of joint military training.
In particular, the country has taken a lead role in hosting Eager Lion, a multinational training exercise that typically includes more than 12,000 participants from more than 20 countries. The two-week exercise, which focuses on special operations and counterterrorism scenarios, builds multinational military capabilities to respond to conventional and unconventional threats.
Our forces also have participated in numerous joint training exercises with other countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia’s Raad al-Shamal in 2016, which brought together forces from Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other nations.
This joint training and coordination, in combination with the efforts of partner nations, have helped reverse gains made by Daesh, whose members have mocked humanitarian values and committed horrible crimes in our neighborhood.
At the urging of King Abdullah, our training increasingly aims to mimic real-world combat. The training directorate has recently switched to using live ammunition in the field, to recreate what real fighting with Daesh would entail.
The battle of ideology
At the same time, special operations training necessarily includes nonkinetic elements. Given the nature of the enemy, the JAF must also fight an ideological war with terrorists who falsely claim to represent Islam.
King Abdullah has long promoted a traditional Islam that rejects violently sectarian views. Jordan was among the first nations that responded to the falsehoods propagated by terrorists by issuing the 2004 Amman Message, which clarified to the modern world the true nature of Islam. The message defined what constitutes a Muslim, forbade takfir (declarations of apostasy) between Muslims, and set preconditions for issuing fatwas, thereby exposing illegitimate edicts issued by extremists in the name of Islam.
Our military conducts specialized training at the Prince Hassan College for Islamic Studies, where lectures and speeches promote real Islam and expose Daesh members as criminals who manipulate religion.
In May 2016, the college celebrated the graduation of the latest class of young military imams, part of the 6th Battalion, the Battalion of Imam Malik ibn Anas. Since 2011, the college has graduated five battalions of expert clerics, who provide advice and guidance to Soldiers and their families.
My government has also empowered these imams to play critical roles in Afghanistan, Bosnia and other former and current conflict zones. These brave men have helped the anti-terror coalition win the hearts and minds of populations and expose terrorists’ lies.
As King Abdullah recently noted, the fight requires allies from all religious backgrounds: “We look at it as a war, as civil war inside of Islam, but we can’t do it without the help of Christians and Jews, and other religions and other nations, because this thing is not just located in Syria or Iraq,” he said. “This is where, I think, we’re going to fall into major trouble over the next couple of years if it’s an ‘us-against-them’ mentality. We’re actually all in the same trench … against what I keep calling the outlaws of our religion.”
Promoting women
The JAF has also worked in recent years to increase the participation of women in our ranks and training exercises. A handful of women participated in Eager Lion 2016, part of a growing number of Jordanian women employed as Soldiers, police officers and civil defense workers in the security sector.
Already, my country employs thousands of women in the JAF and has supplied them for United Nations peacekeeping missions and female engagement teams in Afghanistan. In 2016, Jordan partnered with Norway and the Czech Republic in a 3.6-million euro project to modernize a training center and expand it to accommodate rising numbers of servicewomen.
In a partnership with NATO, the kingdom aims to increase the percentage of women in its ranks to 3 percent.
Under the firm leadership of King Abdullah, all of these changes will strengthen my country’s capacity to play a leading role in the defeat of Daesh and other threats to peace in the region. I am confident that the JAF will become an even better coalition partner to our friends around the world.
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