{"id":40108,"date":"2019-07-14T21:22:57","date_gmt":"2019-07-14T21:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=40108"},"modified":"2019-07-14T21:22:57","modified_gmt":"2019-07-14T21:22:57","slug":"qatar-opens-new-coast-guard-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=40108","title":{"rendered":"Qatar opens new coast guard base"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\" data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1525586\/middle-east\" readability=\"49\">\n<p>\nSEMAISIMA, Qatar: Qatar inaugurated its largest coast guard base Sunday as a standoff between Iran and the United States continues to boost tensions in strategic Gulf waters.<br \/>Prime Minister Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al-Thani and commander of US Naval Forces in the Middle East Vice Admiral Jim Malloy attended the ceremony at the Al-Daayen naval base in Semaisima, 30 kilometers from Doha on Qatar\u2019s eastern coast.<br \/>Qatar, a key US ally in the region, is home to Washington\u2019s largest Middle East military base. But Doha has come under pressure for its close ties to Iran.<br \/>Malloy, commander of the US Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain, said the new base was \u201ca wonderful opportunity for us to interface more strongly with the Qatari coast guard.\u201d<br \/>Tensions in the Gulf \u2014 through which nearly a fifth of the world\u2019s oil is transported \u2014 have spiked in recent weeks, with the US blaming Iran for multiple attacks on tanker ships in the region and Tehran shooting down an American drone.<br \/>The 600,000-plus square-meter site aims to \u201cfacilitate the securing of all territorial waters of the State and border posts,\u201d the interior ministry wrote on Twitter.<br \/>It includes a \u201csophisticated seaport,\u201d training and medical facilities, civil defense offices and operating rooms, the ministry added.<br \/>Asked whether the base could enhance US-Qatari coordination on Iran, Malloy said the move was \u201call about maritime security, that\u2019s what our focus is.\u201d<br \/>The US said Thursday it was discussing military escorts for vessels in the Gulf a day after armed Iranian boats allegedly threatened a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz.<br \/>And on Friday Britain said it was sending a second warship to the Gulf and raising the alert level in the oil-rich region after Iranian gunboats threatened a UK supertanker.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SEMAISIMA, Qatar: Qatar inaugurated its largest coast guard base Sunday as a standoff between Iran and the United States continues to boost tensions in strategic Gulf waters.Prime Minister Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al-Thani and commander of US Naval Forces in the Middle East Vice Admiral Jim Malloy attended the ceremony at the Al-Daayen naval&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":40109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40108","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\/40108","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=40108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}