National Guard (Arab Union)

The National Guard (Arabic: الحرس الوطني al-ḥaras al-waṭanī) is a unified command of militias raised by the 20 member republics of the Arab Union. It answers directly to the President of the Arab Union through its General Staff, functioning as a parallel hierarchy to the Ministry of Defence and subordinate Union Defence Forces. The National Guard maintains a garrison in all large and many small cities, recruiting personnel from within the local community which it is responsible for defending.

National Guard personnel are similar to reservists in that they typically maintain a separate full-time occupation, training with their units on weekends and holidays; however, the National Guard is responsible for the first-line defence of its area of responsibility, meaning personnel are required to report for duty at any time in the event of armed conflict or other serious situations in their locality.

The National Guard has a total of 2,159,266 personnel as of January 2019.