Gulf Times – Qatar’s top-selling English daily newspaper – First Page
By Ramesh Mathew Staff Reporter
Qatar National Day was celebrated on a grand scale yesterday with a colourful military parade on the Doha Corniche. Braving cold weather and traffic blocks on many city roads in the morning hours, hundreds of residents lined up to witness the parade, which featured a large number of marching platoons and new armoured vehicles. As in the previous years, vehicles carrying dignitaries led by HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani followed the armoured vehicles as countless flag-waving spectators cheered the country’s leader who responded by waving back at the crowds. a captivating air show featuring a series of fighter planes which zoomed past emitting smoke trails in the national colours of maroon and white was among the highpoints of the celebrations. Sorties by parachute jumpers from the armed forces were equally remarkable and left many awestruck. the jumpers made their landings on the spacious lawns in the precincts of the Emiri Diwan. an exciting and wonderful show by armed forces helicopters was also presented. in another impressive display, a brand new Qatar Airways aircraft flew past the parade zone at a low altitude towards the end of the show of military vehicles. there was also a march past featuring contingents from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guards, Internal Security Force, Civil Defence, heritage police, cadets of training institutes and other academies, as well as scouts and schoolchildren. the show of the country’s military might featured battle tanks, armoured personnel carriers, rocket launchers, mine detectors, anti-aircraft guns, propellers, infantry vehicles, surveillance equipment, fire extinguishers, coastguard vessels, anti-pirate frigates, interceptors, fire engines of the civil defence, other monitoring and communication vehicles in the use of the Internal Security Force and Al Fazaa, and other departments of the Ministry of Interior. even though the parade’s focus seemed to be on the armed forces’ recent possessions, the organisers also succeeded in bringing to the fore the country’s cultural heritage, fielding groups of soldiers on horses and camels. the cavalcade of horses, led by immaculately dressed soldiers, drew attention of the spectators.
