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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Saudi Arabia
Index
Saudi princes perform a traditional sword dance at the
Janadriyah festival in 1985, sponsored by the Saudi Arabian
National Guard.
Courtesy Aramco World
Although not subordinate to the minister of defense and
aviation and frequently referred to as a paramilitary or an
internal security force, the national guard came to be regarded
as a integral part of the Saudi military establishment with the
modernization of its active units and its role in the Persian
Gulf War. The force was a direct descendant of the Ikhwan, the
tribal army that served Abd al Aziz so well during his long
effort to retake the Arabian Peninsula for the House of Saud.
After having to curb the independent military operations and
excesses of the Ikhwan, Abd al Aziz permitted it to reappear as
the so-called White Army (the name stemmed from the traditional
Arab dress rather than uniforms worn by the members), which later
became the national guard. It was not a reserve component similar
to the national guard of the United States; at least part of it
was an active-duty armed force existing parallel to, but separate
from, the regular military service branches. The strength of the
guard in 1992 was estimated at 75,000, but 20,000 of that total
served in a militia status, on call for mobilization rather than
on daily active duty.
The head of the national guard for three decades since 1962
was King Fahd's half brother and designated successor, Amir Abd
Allah. Three of Abd Allah's sons also held positions in the guard
organization. The guard chain of command was completely separate
from regular military channels, as was its communication system.
Commanders of major units reported directly to Abd Allah, and he
reported to the king. In the post-World War II era, as Arab
monarchs in other countries fell to coups and revolutions, the
Saudi royal family evidently decided that a parallel army such as
the national guard would be a form of insurance against coups.
Its continued existence was, however, also a matter of tribal and
family politics. Abd Allah was considered the leader of the
Shammar branch of the Al Saud, a rival source of power to the
Sudairi branch that dominated the regular armed forces
(see The Royal Family
, ch. 4).
Training of the national guard became the responsibility of
the Vinnell Corporation of the United States in 1975. About 1,000
United States Vietnam veterans were initially recruited to serve
in the long-term training program designed to convert the guard
into a mobile and hard-hitting counterinsurgency force that could
also reinforce the regular army if necessary. These contractors
were supervised by a United States military group with the
designation Office of the Program Manager--Saudi Arabian National
Guard (OPM-SANG).
Extensive military infrastructure facilities have been built
to ensure the comfort and well-being of national guard units.
Their major cantonments were in Al Ahsa Oasis near Al Hufuf and
the major oil installations of the Eastern Province and at Al
Qasim in Najd Province in an area where many of the tribal
elements were recruited and most training was conducted. A large
new housing project for guard personnel, with associated schools,
shops, and mosques, has been constructed near Riyadh, also the
site of the guard's military academy, the King Khalid Military
College. Other national guard military cities were located at At
Taif, Ad Dammam, and Jiddah. A new headquarters complex was built
in Riyadh in the early 1980s.
During the 1950s and early 1960s, the regular army and the
national guard were both small and of roughly equal strength. The
guard suffered when the army's expansion was given priority, but
in the 1970s the decline was reversed when the guard was
converted to a light mechanized force with the help of United
States advisers. Initially consisting of four combined arms
battalions, the active-duty component had by 1992 been enlarged
to two mechanized brigades, each with four infantry battalions,
an artillery battalion, and engineering and signals companies.
The guard's mobility over desert terrain was assured by 1,100 V150 Commando wheeled APCs. Firepower came from 105mm and 155mm
towed howitzers, 106mm recoilless rifles, and TOW antitank
missiles mounted on APCs (see
table 16, Appendix).
The second component of the national guard, made up of tribal
battalions under the command of local shaykhs, was organized into
four infantry brigades. These men, often the sons of local chiefs
or of veterans of the original Ikhwan forces, reported for duty
about once a month for the purpose of receiving stipends. They
were provided with obsolete rifles, although many had
individually acquired Soviet AK-47 assault rifles. Although
neither particularly well trained nor well equipped, they could
be counted on to be loyal to the House of Saud if called for
service. Their enrollment in the guard was largely a means to
bolster the subsidies paid to local shaykhs and to retain the
support of their tribes.
The national guard was swiftly deployed to the border area
after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and was actively engaged
in the war, notably in the fighting to retake the town of Ras al
Khafji
(see Persian Gulf War, 1991
, this ch.). After the war
ended, it was reported that an enlargement of the national guard
to eleven or twelve active brigades was contemplated. In
addition, the Commando APCs were to be replaced by more than
1,000 eight-wheeled light armored vehicles (LAVs) manufactured by
General Motors in Canada. The LAVs were to be mounted with a
variety of armaments, such as 25mm guns, kinetic energy guns, and
TOW missile launchers.
Data as of December 1992
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