GCC Naval Group To Focus on Coastal Threats

[al-Hasani]

GCC Naval Group To Focus on Coastal Threats

Gulf Presence: Kuwaiti Navy missile attack ship Al Fahaheel participates with Combined Task Force 523 during the International Mine Countermeasures Exercise 2013. Gulf Cooperation Council states are proposing a joint naval force. (Gary M. Keen/ / AFP)​

Oct. 18, 2014
By AWAD MUSTAFA

DUBAI — The Gulf Cooperation Council’s planned maritime security force — announced last week at a conference in Qatar — will most likely focus on coastal interdictions and counterterrorism operations and be less of a “blue water navy,” according to a regional expert.

Maj. Gen. Ahmed Yousif al-Mulla, assistant to the Kuwaiti defense minister, announced the formation of a GCC naval force on the sidelines of the Qatar Maritime Security Conference in Doha last week.

The new force is expected to be formed in the “coming months,” Mulla said, and military officials from the six GCC nations of Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates were still working out details for the naval force.

The size of the force will depend on the “level of external threats for gulf marine security,” he was quoted by AFP as saying.

The force is being formed in response to foreign intervention in the region, said Ahmed al-Attar, assistant director for defense and security at the Delma Institute in Abu Dhabi.

“This force is most likely being formed in response to what has happened in Yemen with the surge of Houthi armament and in Bahrain with opposition members receiving explosives and weapons,” he said.

“The main supply routes are through the sea and the flow of smuggled Iranian weapons into the region is a major cause for concern for security of the region,” he added.

The force, Attar said, is expected to mainly conduct naval interdiction missions, stopping illegal drugs and weapons shipment.

“It will consist mainly of interdiction vessels and patrol vessels and will be more of a coast guard than a real blue water navy, I expect,” he said.

In his statement, Mulla said the force will also be involved in counterterrorism operations. The announcement, he added, will be in the coming months and the force will be called Maritime Security Group 81.

Mulla added that the force will be established in line with the Peninsula Shield Force that was established in 1982.

The GCC maritime force comes after a string of radical announcements by the group to create a Joint Military Command in December last year.

The GCC Joint Military Command was also expected to have a force of 100,000 members, said Prince Miteb Bin Abdullah, Saudi Arabia’s minister of the National Guard.

“There will be a unified command of around 100,000 members, God willing. I hope it will happen soon, and the National Guard is ready for anything that is asked of it,” Miteb was quoted as saying by the Saudi Press Agency this year.

The announcement of the command was backed by US President Barack Obama who issued a directive to Congress to facilitate GCC defense article sales and defense services under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act.

GCC Naval Group To Focus on Coastal Threats | Defense News | defensenews.com

About time. The Red Sea, Gulf and Arabian Sea should be our sphere of influence/partial control. After all the Arabian Peninsula is not an peninsula without reason. The navies also need a big upgrade in all GCC countries and especially KSA compared to the other arsenal.

 

[Thəorətic Muslim]

1. Are Qatar and the other Gulf States best friends now?

2. So this the Naval Unification Phase of the greater Unified Defense Command of the Gulf States?

3. Are all of the Military units of the Gulf States being unified, NG & Army of Saud etc?

4. How relevantly is Arabian Gulf being used?

 

[al-Hasani]

1. Are Qatar and the other Gulf States best friends now?

2. So this the Naval Unification Phase of the greater Unified Defense Command of the Gulf States?

3. Are all of the Military units of the Gulf States being unified, NG & Army of Saud etc?

4. How relevantly is Arabian Gulf being used?

1) The GCC and Qatar were always partners or friends (otherwise they would not have been part of the same GCC) there were just political differences in connection to how Syria and Iraq should be handled and regarding the MB. As you might know then Qatar has been supporting MB movements as the only Arab country that I can think of. Hence them being close partners with MB-ruled Turkey. AKP is basically the Turkish version of the MB. Most of the differences have been settled by now.

2) Yes, it is. Everything that GCC does in terms of major decisions on this field has been discussed and approved by all parties.

3) I prefer using Arabian states instead. Most of the GCC member states might be located in the ancient historical region of Eastern Arabia but KSA and Oman for instance are not countries were "Khaliji" Arabic, culture etc. is practiced outside of a small minority.

You should read this link below;

Eastern Arabia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Army of Saud". It's the national army of KSA. It existed in states making up what is now KSA before 1932 and it will exist the day the House of Saud will be gone. The US military is not the "Army of Barack Hussein Obama". Yes, there is integration but for now it is mostly bound in close cooperation, obligations as a consequence of GCC membership etc. A unified military command structure was approved last year though.

GCC Announces a Joint Military Command | Defense News | defensenews.com

So it is still an ongoing process and kind of at its infancy but already before that the GCC states had an obligation of defending a member state if it came under attack or asked for support. We saw that with Bahrain and KSA.

After all the GCC itself was founded as a intergovernmental political and economic union that also was intended as a regional military alliance.

4) It's used just as Iraqis for instance call it the Gulf of Basra. Geographical names are not always the same depending on the language. Besides frankly speaking Arabs have dozens of seas named after them, the Arab world borders the Atlantic Ocean, has the longest Mediterranean coastline (by far), borders the beautiful and tropical Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean etc. Several seas, gulfs, mountains, lakes, historical regions are named after Arabs. Anyway Arabs are also the biggest ethnic group living alongside the Gulf with a significant presence on the Iranian side as well. Personally I do not care about the name of that body of water and I do not take part in debates regarding that as some people do, LOL. People can call body of waters whatever names they want to. After all somebody invented those names at one point and before that people probably called it by other names. For instance do you know what the Atlantic Ocean was called once? I don't.