Bangladesh’s military, globally acclaimed for its UN peacekeeping missions, have joined the Qatar multinational exercise to show the world its capabilities in crisis management like natural disaster.
Published : 13 May 2015, 06:11 PM
Styled ‘Ferocious Falcon’, the small peninsular country in the Persian Gulf is hosting this fourth-of-its-kind military exercise involving 27 countries, including the US, UK, Germany, and France as observers.
Bangladesh is participating in almost all events that began on May 11.
Its team consists of nearly 350 personnel including 236 from the Navy that joined with its largest ship ‘Somudra Joy’.
Qatar is preparing to host 2022 FIFA World Cup.
It uses this exercise as a way to evaluate its own capabilities to use its military in a crisis situation like terrorist attacks.
Doha serves as host to major US military facilities in the Middle East.
For the Bangladesh military, the exercise is an opportunity to display their capabilities to the world, which bolsters its claim for a bigger role in global peace-keeping.
“We’re demonstrating our skills and capabilities in this exercise to our friendly countries. If they face any crisis, they will easily recall what Bangladesh can offer them,” said Brigadier General Abdullah Al Yusuf, Bangladesh team leader.
“It’s military diplomacy,” he told bdnews24.com's diplomatic correspondent, accompanying them.
The exercise covers crisis management during terrorist attacks, hijackings, natural disasters, threat to vital installations, and offering critical services.
Bangladesh armed forces have developed expertise in disaster management, especially in management of cyclones which hit Bangladesh every so often.
This is besides its normal capabilities of defending its borders.
Apart from taking part in all disaster management activities within the country, in recent years, they rendered disaster response assistance to Japan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, China, Pakistan, Myanmar, India, Maldives, Haiti and Nepal.
Yusuf said a disaster situation often goes beyond the control of the affected country.
“Then they need help, so our approach is how together we all can tackle a situation,” he said, citing the latest example of Nepal earthquake where Bangladesh responded immediately with critical assistance.
The whole 12-day exercise is divided into two parts – planning and action.
The action part – Field Training Exercise (FTX) in military parlance – will be held on May 18-20.
Qatar has engaged all of its civil departments including its ministry of labour for the exercise.
In the planning session on Wednesday, participating countries have been working on rescuing a hijacked civilian aircraft from the National Defense and Crisis Management Centre.
Forces of all participating countries have been divided in groups – intelligence, operations, logistics, plans, medical and media – to handle the situation.
A UK observer told bdnews24.com that during military situation they respond to media as fast as possible. “You know its free media (in UK), and they are very fast. So our target is to reach them quickly before any misleading information spread”.
“This is very important for handling a military situation,” the observer who is not authorized to talk with media said.
In the final operations from May 17, Bangladesh’s engineering, medical and special force will also be engaged in the ground operations.
Natural disaster, acts of terrorism at sports facilities, civilian airplane crash in the sea, chemical or biological leak, hijacking of civilian aircraft, hijacking oil and gas tankers and collapse of a residential tower are some of the highlights of the final drills.
“This’ll help to build a friendly and trustworthy relations with all,” Bangladesh team leader Brig Yusuf said.
He said the exercise was also aimed at sending a message across that “armed forces not only fight on the frontiers, they can also work for peace”.
“Collectively we can fight off common threats like natural disaster and terrorism,” he told bdnews24.com.