Defence Ministry proposes additional assets for Gerak Khas

KUALA LUMPUR: The Defence Ministry has proposed additional assets for the Armed Forces Gerak Khas regiment in its request from the 2018 Budget that will be tabled next week.

Its minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, said he had informed Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to consider this.

“The additional assets for the commandos are among the priorities in the Defence Ministry’s wishlist for the upcoming budget. We believe that it would help us in handling new terror threats, such as what is happening in Marawi City, the Philippines.

“We have never faced any Islamic State attacks and threats here, but our commandos have to be equipped with the latest assets as preparation.”

He said this after attending the Transformasi Nasional 2050 (TN50) dialogue at Wisma Perwira here yesterday.

A total of 890 participants, including officers and rank-and-file personnel, the ministry’s official and armed forces veterans, attended the dialogue. In the session, most aspirations presented involved the welfare of soldiers in realising the TN50 vision.

Hishammuddin said before the dialogue session, 57 sessions were conducted at the ministry level, collecting more than 50,000 aspirations involving 33,019 personnel.

“In the dialogue sesattention sion, I shared with them on effort to strengthen the welfare and readiness of armed forces, the role the Defence Ministry and armed forces have to play in drafting national defence policy, as well as the transformation needed to face the rapidly changing world.

“I agree with their aspirations, which touched on welfare issues. That is why we can see that was given especially on the welfare of our soldiers.

“If we look at the conflicts at the Middle East, such as in Aleppo and Mosul, the sophisticated assets could not resolve what is happening there.”

He said what was important to him was the spirit and moral of the soldiers, hence the welfare of these soldiers had to be taken care of.