Brig. Gen. Engineer Salem Abusherida, Qatar Senior National Representative to USCENTCOM When Maj. Gen. Salem Al-Nabet reviews the achievements of the Qatar Emiri Air Force, two stand out. It possesses not just one of the world’s most modern air defense systems, but also a stellar training academy: Al Zaeem Mohammed Bin Abdullah Al Attiya Air College. A fighter pilot who commands the Qatar Air Force, Maj. Gen. Salem has spent much of his 37-year career organizing, training and equipping Air Force units to ensure the security, sovereignty and integrity of his nation’s airspace. He was instrumental in the creation of…
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An Omani cadet was named top international student at Great Britain’s Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. The Sandhurst commandant awarded Omani Officer Cadet Al Azhar bin Zahir Al Zakwani the Overseas Sword in August 2020. The award is given to the best international cadet in every class at the academy. More than 5,000 foreign nationals from 120 countries have studied at Sandhurst since 1947. Omani cadets have a long history of attending the academy, thanks to the two countries’ robust relationship dating back decades. Oman’s Royal Armed Forces were established in the 1950s with the help of the British Armed Forces.…
Qatar’s investment in maritime security is paying off with the delivery of a new naval ship from a Turkish shipyard in October 2020. The Al Doha QTS-91, built at Anadolu Shipyard in Istanbul, is one of the largest training ships in the world, designed for search and rescue operations and maritime patrols. The ship displaces 2,150 tons and can hold 150 Sailors and naval cadets. The Qatar Emiri Navy bought the ship as part of a larger deal signed during the 2018 Doha International Maritime Defense Exhibition and Conference. Qatar held a ceremony to mark the delivery of Al Doha…
UNIPATH STAFF The Jordanian government has reinstated military conscription for 25- to 29-year-old men lacking job, family or educational prospects. The reintroduction of the draft required enlistment of 5,000 men in 2020 and will affect another 15,000 in 2021. A memorandum of understanding was signed in August 2020 between the Jordanian government represented by then Prime Minister Omar Razzaz and the Jordan Armed Forces represented by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Maj. Gen. Yousef Al-Hnaity. The period of military service is 12 months, during which new recruits will spend three months at boot camp to acquire basic military…
Saudi security services announced the capture of Iranian-trained terrorists armed with guns, bombs and improvised explosive devices. Ten extremists — three of whom received military training from the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — were arrested in September 2020. A spokesman for Saudi Arabia’s Presidency of State Security said the leaders of the terrorist cell “received military and field training, including on how to make explosives, inside Revolutionary Guards sites in Iran” in late 2017. The terrorists had stashed their arsenal in two locations: a house and a ranch. Among the weapons discovered were explosives shaped like sunglasses and other…
Egypt hosted a multinational coalition to conduct an air and naval exercise on the Mediterranean Sea in late 2020. The weeklong joint exercise, named Medusa 10, occupied waters off the coast of Alexandria and drew participants from Cyprus, France, Greece and the United Arab Emirates. Aimed at enhancing regional and international cooperation to confront security challenges in the Mediterranean region, the maritime drills were observed by representatives from each country’s ministry of defense. Prominent among them was Egyptian Lt. Gen. Mohamed Zaki, the country’s minister of defense and military production. The exercise began with a military briefing aboard the Egyptian…
To enhance the professionalism of the Lebanese law enforcement in serving its communities, Soldiers attended a conference on how to manage unruly crowds and political demonstrations within the parameters of international human rights laws. The workshop organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in October 2020 stressed the importance of complying with humanitarian principles governing the use of force during public unrest. ICRC receives money from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. Held at the Lebanese Armed Forces 11th Infantry Brigade headquarters, the sessions emphasized guidelines, roles and responsibilities of law enforcement…
UNIPATH STAFF As monsoon season ended in the Gulf of Aden, the Pakistan Navy joined a multinational flotilla in November 2020 to deter piracy in critical shipping lanes. Operation Shamal engaged several naval partners from Combined Maritime Forces based in Bahrain. Pakistan Navy ship Zulfiquar joined ships from South Korea and Japan to patrol waters between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. The Zulfiquar worked closely with a South Korean ship on a passing exercise designed to test interoperability between the two navies in times of crisis. Pakistan is a member of Combined Task Force (CTF) 150, which…
UNIPATH STAFF Hailed as a “very important milestone” toward building peace in Yemen, the warring parties in the country’s civil war exchanged hundreds of prisoners in October 2020. The breakthrough came during negotiations sponsored by the United Nations in Switzerland in September 2020. It was the largest release of prisoners of war by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia and the legitimate government of Yemen since the conflict began in 2015. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres thanked the International Committee of the Red Cross for helping oversee the prisoner exchange. About 680 rebels were released and flown to the city of Sanaa, under…
UNIPATH STAFF In a mission that united the efforts of Afghanistan’s national intelligence service and military forces, Afghan troops tracked down and killed one of al-Qaida’s top commanders. The death of Husam Abd al-Rauf, also known as Abu Muhsin al-Masri, illustrates the growing ability of Afghanistan’s legitimately elected government to defend its territory from the depredations of terrorists. The Egyptian-born al-Rauf met his end in Ghazni province at the hands of Afghan special operations forces on October 24, 2020, and Afghan leaders suggested it wouldn’t be the last such operation. “Terrorist groups, especially al-Qaida and Daesh, should realize after the…