AMMAN: A museum displaying 110 battle-worn tanks from a century of wars in the Middle East and from more distant conflicts has opened in Jordan.
Curators at the Royal Tank Museum collected armored vehicles over the past decade, including some that served in both sides of the Iran-Iraq war and in the conflicts between Israel and its Arab neighbors in the Golan Heights, Jordan and Jerusalem.
Other contributions came from faraway places, such as Azerbaijan, Morocco, Taiwan and Brunei. Most of the museum’s tanks were made in America, reflecting Jordan’s long-running alliance with the US. Some pieces reached Jordan in a particularly roundabout way, including a World War II-era German tank used by the Nazis in North Africa. A swastika-in-palm-tree stencil marks it as one of the German Africa Corps’ fleet of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. The Syrians had bought the tank in the 1950s from Czechoslovakia and deployed it against Israel, then gave it to Jordan in 2009.
“The museum is telling the story of the world through the history of tanks,” said the museum’s General Manager Maher Tarawneh.
The museum, the second in the region after Israel’s Yad La-Shiryon, opened last week.
On a recent morning, hundreds of Jordanians lined up outside to be led through the museum by guides, many of them army veterans.
The 20,000-square-meter space also includes exhibits of historic battles in Syria, Jerusalem and Jordan, with loudspeakers blaring gunfire, roars of diesel engines, and fiery patriotic speeches. Life-size replicas of soldiers staff turrets as tank treads menace intricately crafted shrubs.
Dangling from a massive sky-light is a Cobra attack helicopter, of the type flown by Jordan’s King Abdullah.
The king decreed the creation of the museum in 2007, launching the acquisition process led by chief curator Hamdan Smairan. The retired major general who commanded the Jordan military’s armored corps began by reaching out to his contacts.
The world’s tank museums supported the venture. The Tank Museum in Dorset, England and the Imperial War Museum in London provided curatorial counsel. Museums in the Czech Republic and France exchanged tanks for Jordanian tanks.
An old friend of Smairan’s lobbied South Africa successfully for the museum’s World War II-era British Crusader tank.
Russia and Kazakhstan gave tanks to Jordan’s king who then added them to the collection, the curator said.
Most of the museum’s tanks were made in America, reflecting Jordan’s long-running alliance with the US. Along with World War II-era Sherman and Tiger tanks, there are also Soviet and Chinese models.
The museum also illustrates Jordan’s history.
An armored vehicle used in the revolt rotates on a dais in the museum. It is followed by tank exhibits telling the story of Jordan in subsequent battles, including the Mideast wars of 1967 and 1973.
The museum will eventually open an exhibition field and offer rides on tanks outside on site.
Tank museum displaying 110 battle-worn tanks opens in Jordan
Tank museum displaying 110 battle-worn tanks opens in Jordan
Libya says UK to analyze black box from crash that killed general
- General Mohammed Al-Haddad and 4 aides died after visit to Ankara, with Turkish officials saying electrical failure caused the Falcon 50 jet to crash shortly after takeoff
TRIPOLI: Libya said on Thursday that Britain had agreed to analyze the black box from a plane crash in Turkiye on December 23 that killed a Libyan military delegation, including the head of its army.
General Mohammed Al-Haddad and four aides died after a visit to Ankara, with Turkish officials saying an electrical failure caused their Falcon 50 jet to crash shortly after takeoff.
Three crew members, two of them French, were also killed.
The aircraft’s black box flight recorder was found on farmland near the crash site.
“We coordinated directly with Britain for the analysis” of the black box, Mohamed Al-Chahoubi, transport minister in the Government of National Unity (GNU), said at a press conference in Tripoli.
General Haddad was very popular in Libya despite deep divisions between west and east.
The North African country has been split since a NATO-backed revolt toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
Haddad was chief of staff for the internationally recognized GNU, which controls the west. The east is run by military ruler Khalifa Haftar.
Chahoubi told AFP a request for the analysis was “made to Germany, which demanded France’s assistance” to examine the aircraft’s flight recorders.
“However, the Chicago Convention stipulates that the country analizing the black box must be neutral,” he said.
“Since France is a manufacturer of the aircraft and the crew was French, it is not qualified to participate. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, was accepted by Libya and Turkiye.”
After meeting the British ambassador to Tripoli on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Taher Al-Baour said a joint request had been submitted by Libya and Turkiye to Britain “to obtain technical and legal support for the analysis of the black box.”
Chahoubi told Thursday’s press briefing that Britain “announced its agreement, in coordination with the Libyan Ministry of Transport and the Turkish authorities.”
He said it was not yet possible to say how long it would take to retrieve the flight data, as this depended on the state of the black box.
“The findings will be made public once they are known,” Chahoubi said, warning against “false information” and urging the public not to pay attention to rumors.
