HH Sayyid Shihab bin Tarik Al Said, Oman’s Deputy Prime Minister for Defence Affairs, visited the site of the strategic drill “Decision Making 9”, being conducted at National Defence College (NDC), Academy for Strategic and Defence Studies.

He took note of the activities of the exercise, carried out by participants in the 9th batch of the NDC. The exercise runs till 7 July 2022, Oman News Agency (ONA) reported.

HH Sayyid Shihab was received upon his arrival at the NDC headquarters by Air Vice Marshal Saleh Yahya Al Maskari, Head of the Academy for Strategic and Defence Studies, and Major General Hamid Ahmed Sakroon, Commandant of the NDC.

HH Sayyid Shihab listened to a briefing about the operations, delivered by Brigadier Abdullah Hamad Al Harthy, Director-General of Studies and Academic Affairs at the academy. Then, he went on tour of the exercise sections. There, he was briefed about methods of handling international events, virtual national issues and appropriate response to all through ground-reality applications, including the use of deduction and analysis methods, before formulating proper decisions that serve the goals of the exercise.

The operations of “Decision Making 9”, which began on 26 June 2022, constitute a core component of the training objectives of the current batch. They are a culmination of the sciences and knowledge imparted to the participants in the 9th batch that comprises personnel from military, security and civil departments of the NDC.

In another development, Rear Admiral Saif Nasser Al Rahbi, Commander of the Royal Navy of Oman (RNO) received in his office at Al Murtafa’a Garrison Commodore Adrian Fryer, Commander of the United Kingdom (UK) Maritime Component Command.

The two sides exchanged views and discussed several naval matters of common interest.

The meeting was attended by Commodore Jasim Mohammed Al Balushi, Director of Operations and Plans at the RNO Command and the Defence Attaché at the British embassy in Muscat.