{"id":22874,"date":"2018-11-23T01:22:35","date_gmt":"2018-11-23T01:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22874"},"modified":"2018-11-23T01:22:35","modified_gmt":"2018-11-23T01:22:35","slug":"jordan-criticised-over-renaming-brigade-after-uae-crown-prince","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22874","title":{"rendered":"Jordan criticised over renaming brigade after UAE crown prince"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Senior Jordanian military officers have expressed displeasure over the renaming of one of the country’s combat brigades after the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, King Abdullah II presided over a ceremony where the military renamed one of its special forces units “Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Rapid Intervention\/High Readiness Brigade” from “Desert Brigade”<\/span>, angering many of Jordan’s armed forces high command.<\/p>\n

The move is “deeply insulting to Jordan’s military traditions”, said a senior officer who wished to remain anonymous.<\/p>\n

“Sadly, it looks like money can change and buy everything, including our military and its traditions.”<\/p>\n

Jordanian military officers are barred from commenting publicly about political and military issues, including the renaming of the brigade, and could be charged if found to have done so.<\/span><\/p>\n

The UAE signed a $100m grant agreement with the Jordan’s Crown Prince Foundation during al-Nahyan’s visit to the country on Tuesday to support business development in Jordan.<\/p>\n

“The renaming of the brigade is ill-conceived and it contradicts Jordan’s military values,”\u00a0Mahmoud Hammad, a retired g<\/span>eneral and former commander of Jordan’s land forces, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

“The military divisions are named after royal family members and historic Muslim commanders. I respect Abu Dhabi’s crown prince and his late father but to have one of Jordan’s armed forces units named after him is just too much.”<\/p>\n

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His Majesty King Abdullah II, the Supreme Commander of the #Jordan<\/a> Armed Forces, and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the #UAE<\/a> Armed Forces, present the new Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Brigade Flag to the flag-bearer pic.twitter.com\/aqHkX03Lz4<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 RHC (@RHCJO) November 20, 2018<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Earlier, a statement by Jordan’s royal court said: “Naming the brigade after the UAE crown prince is an expression of the deep brotherly ties between the two nations.”<\/p>\n

The brigade was established in 2014 during the Syrian civil war with the help of the US army.<\/p>\n

The US Central Command, which lists Jordan, Syria and Iraq as part of its area of responsibility, envisioned the brigade as a strike force to target ISIL fighters in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n

The US also equipped the brigade with eight US-made Blackhawk helicopters.<\/p>\n

Since the 1960s, Jordanian military officers have trained and advised UAE and other Gulf militaries.<\/p>\n

Jordan currently has “between 80 and 100” combat special forces that support the UAE’s efforts in the war in Yemen, according to senior Jordanian officers.<\/p>\n

Follow Ali Younes on Twitter:\u00a0@ali_reports<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senior Jordanian military officers have expressed displeasure over the renaming of one of the country’s combat brigades after the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. On Tuesday, King Abdullah II presided over a ceremony where the military renamed one of its special forces units “Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Rapid Intervention\/High Readiness…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}