A Saudi official said the country appreciated the show of support by the Malaysian Armed Forces to jointly defend the Gulf region.
“We know that Malaysia is a faraway land from the Gulf region but the fact that it still participated in the joint exercise only proves that Malaysia is a peace-loving nation,” he said.
He said due to the distance, it was understandable if Malaysia’s participation involved only manpower.
Another Saudi official said Saudi Arabia highly valued all the expertise that Malaysia shared during the exercise which took place from March 27 to April 7.
Gulf Shield 1, involving 24 participating countries including Pakistan and Afghanistan, is considered the largest armed exercise in the region in terms of the number of nations and quality of its weapons
It was conducted in two phases of combined exercise – the Command Post Exercise through simulation throughout the Eastern Command Area of Saudi Armed Forces, and Field Training Exercise at the Samit Madain field by the sea about an hour’s drive from here.
The areas are considered possible landing sites of threat along the Saudi east coast. The drills were aimed to confront, deter and counter threats and challenges on regional countries there.
The Malaysian flag was raised in Madain, witnessed by some 200 foreign journalists who were here to cover the Arab League Summit today.
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