SADJ 7#3

KASOTC
The Warrior Competition
“The King’s Challenge”
By Dan Shea
“We have to understand that it is
called “international” terrorism,
however, we as Special Forces, special
operations units all over the
world are not yet international. The
bad guys always work together, have always
been coordinating, and have always
been international. The good guys never
have been. Progress has been made in intelligence–sharing,
thus, we have to work
together in order to defeat the bad guys’
will. Soldiers know better than anybody
whether their training is good or not. Soldiers
will always know if the instructor
coming in their country is showing him
100 percent of what that person knows,
or just showing him a bit. Our philosophy
in Jordan is to share everything we
have with our brothers and counterparts
around the Middle East and beyond. At
the end of the day if your partners are
strong, you are strong.”
– King Abdullah II Bin Al-Hussein
of Jordan
Brigadier General Aref Alzaben, the
General Director King Abdullah II Special
Operations Training Center (KASOTC),
welcomed the teams and their support
groups to the 6th Annual Warrior Competition
at KASOTC and began a five day
competition that all would remember in
a spirit of brotherhood and camaraderie.
SADJ has attended several of the competitions
and watched them get better every
year. This year, there were 38 teams from
18 countries. KASOTC has always been a
special project of the King – he’s a special
operations trained fighter himself. From
all accounts, he wasn’t cut any slack in any
of that training or operations, and won’t
allow it for any of the Jordanian forces.
The preferred rifle for most teams was an
M4 variant in 5.56x45mm with a variety
of optics. Some of the teams preparing
for the Precision Rifle course were Chinese,
U.S., Jordanian, Palestinian, and
Kuwaiti. One member would switch to a
sniper rifle for some of the long runs.
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