National Coast Guard (Arab Union)
The National Coast Guard (Arabic: خفر السواحل الوطني khafar as-sawāḥil al-waṭanī) is the official coast guard of the Union of Arab Republics (UAR). A civilian agency within the federal government's Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, the National Coast Guard is a federal law enforcement agency with jurisdiction at sea; while it primarily upholds maritime law and safety, it does have the power to enforce all civil and criminal law as any other civilian police agency while in the lawful execution of its duties.
The National Coast Guard is entrusted with three primary responsibilities: 1) the enforcement of nautical/maritime laws and regulations for domestic and foreign civilian vessels, including proper use of waterways and fishing resources; 2) performing search & rescue for all vessels and maritime missions no operating within the country's maritime territory as well as Arab Union vessels in international waters; and 3) assisting the "J" Directorate of the Joint Security Committee (the national security apparatus) in performing all its customs, immigration and border security operations at sea, mainly via maritime border patrol and by providing transportation for customs & immigration officers in the fulfillment of their duties. Regarding the third primary role, National Coast Guard personnel have no jurisdiction of their own to enforce customs & immigration policy; there is, however, a division of the Coast Guard specifically dedicated to maritime border patrol, which in cases of suspected illegal immigration or smuggling will provide all necessary transportation to customs officials in the prosecution of their duties, and which even alone has the right to protect the integrity of the national border at sea by interdicting suspect vessels on behalf of the Coast Guards and by extension the state. The Coast Guard also regularly rotates divisions to accompany fleets of the Arab Navy patrolling territorial waters in peacetime, and is also an the most important provider of logistics for the Arab Navy.
During wartime, the National Coast Guard comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defence, in which case certain divisions will be responsible for directly assisting the Arab Navy (and sometimes other service branches and/or military formations), mostly involving domestic responsibilities like transportation of naval personnel and materiel and other logistics operations, domestic patrol, coastal reconnaissance, rescue operations at sea, and de-mining operations in territorial waters (the National Coast Guard has a dedicated minesweeping division, which during peacetime is active across several maritime regions, including both territorial and extra-territorial waters, in safely deactivating and removing underwater mines from previous wars; the division is in fact the largest de-mining agency in the world, and in September 2019 claimed to have removed nearly 25% of known world naval mines since it began operations exactly thirty years prior).
The city of Port Fuad, Palestine is home to the National Coast Guard's headquarters, which includes the main command centre, a training academy, the main dockyard, and primary drydocks and maintenance/repair centre. The headquarters is located at 1100 23rd of July Boulevard, Port Fuad, just up the road from Budapest Naval Station, the headquarters of the Arab Navy; the Coast Guard maintains another 74 ports and 4 shipyards throughout the Arab Union. As of January 2020, the Coast Guard had 70,415 personnel and an additional 24,117 auxiliary personnel, 2,210 vessels, 221 helicopters and 10 fixed-wing aircraft. It has been led by Chief-Admiral of the Coast Guard Amir Shelash since February 2016.
