Iraq and Jordan signed a military cooperation agreement in August 2018 to improve joint security in the post-Daesh era. Then Iraqi Defense Minister Irfan Mahmoud Al Hayali signed the bilateral deal in Amman with Jordanian Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Freihat. Also present at the signing was Iraqi Ambassador to Jordan Safia al-Suhail and senior military officers. “The agreement aims to exchange expertise and information in the fields of border protection, developing intelligence capabilities, joint military exercises, research and technology development, combating terrorism in various forms, training and development,” the Iraqi Ministry of Defense…
Unipath
UNIPATH STAFF Counterterrorism, freedom of navigation, the Yemeni conflict and arms smuggling were discussed during a July 2018 visit to Washington by Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi. He met with top officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then Secretary of Defense James Mattis. The State Department noted that Alawi and Pompeo “affirmed the importance of continued support for the efforts of United Nations Special Envoy Martin Griffiths and emphasized the need for all parties to show restraint to avoid further escalation of hostilities.” Griffiths has tried to resolve Yemen’s civil war diplomatically, using Muscat as a…
UNIPATH STAFF | Photos by Bahrain Defence Force Sheikha Aisha bint Rashid Al Khalifa — the first Bahraini woman to graduate from the prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst — has established another first for her country. In July 2018, she became the first woman in her country to pilot a warplane. The historic one-hour flight out of Sheikh Isa Air Base was observed by His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa. Prince Khalifa had two reasons for attending — he is one of Bahrain’s top government officials and the grandfather of Sheikha Aisha. The prime minister…
UNIPATH STAFF Egypt has built a counterterrorism center to coordinate military action and law enforcement with dozens of its African neighbors. The 14,000-square-meter center in Cairo, which Egypt financed with $5.6 million, will serve the 29-member Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD). Egyptian Maj. Gen. Hamdi Bakhit said the center will focus on officer training and intelligence coordination to uproot violent extremism. Egypt promised to sponsor training for military personnel from CEN-SAD members and hold regional counterterrorism military exercises. “Breaking up and destroying terrorist networks is not easy. But this is the main task of the center, which will be performed…
I am very grateful to our U.S. Central Command friends for inviting me to present this special edition of Unipath, which addresses Iraq’s defeat of Daesh. I was honored to command the joint forces fighting these terrorists from 2014 to the end of 2016, during the ferocious battles in places like Mosul, Anbar and the Baghdad region. During that critical phase, we worked with coalition forces around the clock to rebuild the Army on a professional basis and develop plans to liberate cities and fight gangs near the capital. In a short period, we cleared the areas near Baghdad and began…
UNIPATH STAFF The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has reinforced its troop presence in Afghanistan as part of the 39-nation coalition battling terrorists intent on destabilizing the country. For much of the past decade, the UAE has stationed about 200 Soldiers in Afghanistan, but recently agreed to send more troops to help train elite Afghan recruits and support counterterrorism missions. Some of the Emirati forces will be based at NATO headquarters. The coalition, part of the NATO-led Resolute Support mission, has been pressuring the Taliban to lay down its arms, renounce terrorism and negotiate a peace settlement with the Afghan government…
UNIPATH STAFF Kazakhstan approved an agreement with NATO to use the Central Asian country’s Caspian Sea ports of Kuryk and Aktau as transit points for nonmilitary cargo to Afghanistan. The deal amends an agreement signed by NATO and Kazakhstan in 2010. NATO sought alternate routes to avoid parts of Pakistan that the alliance deemed insufficiently stable, according to a statement from Kazakhstan’s Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Defense and Security. NATO would ship cargo across the Caspian from Azerbaijan to Kazakhstan and then carry it by rail to Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov stressed that the agreement…
UNIPATH STAFF A truck contaminated with potentially hazardous radiation attracted the scrutiny of Kuwaiti and U.S. troops in a scenario that played out in the Kuwaiti desert in April 2018. The weapons of mass destruction drill was serious business requiring reliance on protective suits and strict decontamination procedures. It was part of a larger multinational focus on dealing with chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks. The exercise brought together 45 members of the Kuwait Land Forces Weapons of Mass Destruction Battalion and the U.S. Army’s 300th Chemical Company. 1st Lt. Nawaf Al-Awadi, assistant commander of training in the Kuwaiti battalion,…
UNIPATH STAFF Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have begun the process of eradicating mines on their mutual border with the goal of reducing fatal accidents and opening more land for productive use. Separate sections of the 1,300-kilometer-long Tajik-Uzbek border were mined at the end of the 1990s at the instigation of the Uzbek government to prevent incursions of militants from the terrorist group Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Unofficial sources suggest the total mined area is about 9.5 square kilometers. Over the past 18 years, 474 people have died from stepping on mines; many more were wounded. Fifty-four sections of the border area…
UNIPATH STAFF U zbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has pledged to improve human rights, reduce restrictions on travel, and make government more responsive to citizens. Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, sent representatives to the country for the first time in seven years to interview government officials, civil society activists, former prisoners and ordinary citizens. The group noted a greater tolerance in Uzbekistan for journalists, religious figures and opposition groups. Another democracy-promoting organization, Freedom House, praised Uzbekistan for loosening control of the media and allowing more public criticism of government officials. Along the same lines, President Mirziyoyev established a…