![]() ![]() The launch was marked by a ceremony with music from the Jordanian Armed Forces band and a local folk group, AFP photographers there said. The museum aims to offer a "new type" of museum experience combining "sports, environment and exhibits" for divers, snorkelers and visitors on glass-bottomed boats, it said. The sunken items have been "stationed along the coral reefs imitating a battle tactical formation", ASEZA said in a statement. The Underwater Military Museum Dive Site includes several tanks, an ambulance, a military crane, a troop carrier, an anti-aircraft battery, guns and a combat helicopter, the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) said. The kingdom is hoping the 19 decommissioned pieces of military hardware, submerged at depths up to 28 metres (92 feet), will attract tourists to the already popular diving resort of Aqaba. The tanks have been placed with their turrets facing towards Lebanon's southern foe Israel "out of solidarity for the Palestinian people", Kozbar said.Sunken tanks, a troop carrier and a submerged helicopter: Jordan on Wednesday opened its first underwater military museum off its Red Sea coast. In a region fraught with tensions the latest project also has some political undertones. In Sidon, a mountain of smelly trash has scarred the shoreline, despite the presence of a new waste management facility. Lebanon boasts some 200 kilometres of Mediterranean coast but beaches have not been spared from a waste and garbage crisis that has plagued Lebanon for years. "This will be a paradise for divers and a place where we can develop underwater life," said NGO representative Kamel Kozbar, who hopes seaweed will soon cover the vehicles. The initiative to create an "underwater park" is spearhead by a local group, Friends of the coast of Sidon, which got the Lebanese army to hand over some of it old vehicles for the project. Three kilometres off the coast of the city of Sidon, a huge crane on the back of a ship manoeuvred the military hardware into place over the water before dropping them down to the seabed one after the other. ![]()
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