Border Guard cadets show their marksmanship skills in a mock sniper fire exercise during their training in Mt. Al-Bursha'a, Monday. (Okaz photo) JEDDAH: Prince Muhammad Bin Naif visited Tuesday the shooting range of the Border Guard, located at Mt. Al-Bursha'a on the road between Riyadh and Dammam, and cast his eye over 578 soon-to-be Border Guard officers conducting training maneuvers. The site has been chosen for a reason. Rippled with arduous terrain and steep climbs and descents, Mt. Al-Bursha'a provides an ideal training ground for the land navigation exercises, tracking techniques and vision equipment in which the 578 guards will be put through their paces before officially graduating and being dispatched to the Kingdom's border zones where colleagues are already stationed to protect the country from infiltrators and smugglers. The face of Prince Muhammad, Assistant Minister of Interior for Security Affairs, is familiar to each and every guard, not through portrait or media, but through his personal presence in every facet of their professional lives as he seeks to ensure they receive the finest training and preparation – the fundamental basis for their readiness for the task ahead in confronting all possible security challenges on the ground. That concern and quest for excellence is embodied in the officers who graduate from the Border Guard Institute. “I would like to thank Prince Muhammad Bin Naif on behalf of all the officers of the Border Guard for standing with his sons and brothers, the members of the Border Guard, who are looking forward to meeting him and personally shaking his hand and displaying before him the sophisticated security skills they have acquired that befit security services which have impressed the whole world in countering terrorists and saboteurs and all who lie in wait to attack the security of the country,” said Border Guard Director General Zamim Al-Sawat. Al-Sawat described Prince Muhammad's instructions and guidance on practical training as having a significant effect on “raising the performance of security men and ensuring their readiness for the security challenges of this age”. “The current circumstances require security services to be constantly on full alert and capable of countering all possibilities in a world rocked by changes in the security situation,” he said. As the aspiring Border Guard officers were put through their paces at Mt. Al-Bursha'a a day ahead of the graduation ceremony in which they will display their skills under the watchful eye of Prince Muhammad, it was clear that the Assistant Minister of Interior for Security Affairs has laid down a comprehensive vision for the security of the country, with each sector complementing the other to form a united team in which each part knows its own duties and those of the others. “The presence of Prince Muhammad at the ceremony represents the crowning of all the effort that has gone into the training,” said Abdul Aziz Al-Asmari, head of the Border Guard Training Institute. “You can immediately feel the moral lift it has given to the graduates.” The trainees, he said, have been camped at Mt. Al-Bursha'a for the last two weeks carrying out shooting range practices with live ammunition, pursuit and seizure maneuvers, and inspection drills and training applied when confronting persons crossing the border into the Kingdom illegally. For many of them, the pinnacle of the end of the fortnight will not just be graduation, but meeting the Prince. “We are all fully aware of the concern Prince Muhammad has for us and his dedication to each and every one of us,” said one Border Guard trainee. “We have nothing but love and loyalty in return, along with our King and nation. We undertake the promise to risk our lives to protect our country from any threat.”
