Tank museum displaying 110 battle-worn tanks opens in Jordan

A museum displaying 110 battle-worn tanks from a century of wars in the Middle East and from more distant conflicts has opened in Jordan.

Curators at the Royal Tank Museum collected armored vehicles over the past decade, including some that served in both sides of the Iran-Iraq war and in the conflicts between Israel and its Arab neighbors in the Golan Heights, Jordan and Jerusalem.

In this Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018 photo, visitors walk past a tank at the Royal Tank Museum in Amman, Jordan. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)

Lights shine on a tank at the Royal Tank Museum in Amman, Jordan, Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018.  (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)

Other contributions came from faraway places, such as Azerbaijan, Morocco, Taiwan and Brunei. Most of the museum's tanks were made in America, reflecting Jordan's long-running alliance with the United States.

Some pieces reached Jordan in a particularly roundabout way, including a World War II-era German tank used by the Nazis in North Africa. A swastika-in-palm-tree stencil marks it as one of the German Africa Corps' fleet of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. The Syrians had bought the tank in the 1950s from Czechoslovakia and deployed it against Israel, then gave it to Jordan in 2009.

"The museum is telling the story of the world through the history of tanks," said the museum's general manager, Maher Tarawneh.

The museum, the second in the region after Israel's Yad La-Shiryon, opened last week.

On a recent morning, hundreds of Jordanians lined up outside to be led through the museum by guides, many of them army veterans.

The 20,000-square-meter (2,392-square yard) space also includes exhibits of historic battles in Syria, Jerusalem and Jordan, with loudspeakers blaring gunfire, roars of diesel engines, and fiery patriotic speeches. Life-size replicas of soldiers staff turrets as tank treads menace intricately crafted shrubs.

Dangling from a massive sky-light is a Cobra attack helicopter, of the type flown by Jordan's King Abdullah II.

In this Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018 photo, a family walks past a display of Soviet tanks at the Royal Tank Museum in Amman, Jorda.(AP Photo/Sam McNeil)

In this Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018 photo, a family walk past a tank at the Royal Tank Museum in Amman, Jordan.  (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)

The king decreed the creation of the museum in 2007, launching the acquisition process led by chief curator Hamdan Smairan. The retired major general who commanded the Jordan military's armored corps began by reaching out to his contacts.

The world's tank museums supported the venture. The Tank Museum in Dorset, England and the Imperial War Museum in London provided curatorial counsel. Museums in the Czech Republic and France exchanged tanks for Jordanian tanks.

An old friend of Smairan's lobbied South Africa successfully for the museum's World War II-era British Crusader tank.

Russia and Kazakhstan gave tanks to Jordan's king who then added them to the collection, the curator said.

Most of the museum's tanks were made in America, reflecting Jordan's long-running alliance with the United States. Along with World War II-era Sherman and Tiger tanks, there are also Soviet and Chinese models.

The museum also illustrates Jordan's history.

In this Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018 photo, a family looks at a display of tanks at the Royal Tank Museum in Amman, Jordan.  (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)

In this Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018 photo, people walk past a display of Cold War-era tanks at the Royal Tank Museum in Amman, Jordan.  (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)

During World War I, as newly invented tanks battled across Europe, Britain-backed Arab irregulars waged a guerrilla campaign against the German-allied Ottoman Empire. The insurrection, which became known as the Great Arab Revolt of 1917, was led by Abdullah I, the great-grandfather of the current monarch and eventual founder of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

An armored vehicle used in the revolt rotates on a dais in the museum. It is followed by tank exhibits telling the story of Jordan in subsequent battles, including the Mideast wars of 1967 and 1973.

In this Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018 photo, a mannequin in Arab garb holds a gun while riding a horse at the Royal Tank Museum in Amman, Jordan, Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)

In this Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018 photo, people walk past a tank and a mural depicting a battle scene at the Royal Tank Museum in Amman, Jordan.  (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)

The museum will eventually open an exhibition field and offer rides on tanks outside on site.

NEW YORK (AP) — When Daniel Penny wrapped his arm around the neck of a homeless man on a Manhattan subway last year, the 25-year-old veteran appeared to be deploying a non-lethal chokehold long drilled into U.S. Marines.

Done right, the maneuver should knock a person out without killing them, according to Joseph Caballer, a combat instructor in the Marine Corps who trained Penny in several types of holds. But held too long, the technique can restrict the flow of blood to a person's brain, ending their life in a matter of minutes.

“Once the person is rendered unconscious, that’s when you’re supposed to let go,” Caballer told a jury on Thursday.

His testimony came weeks into the trial of Penny, who faces charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide after placing Jordan Neely, a homeless man and Michael Jackson impersonator, in the fatal chokehold last May.

Prosecutors allege that Penny “went way too far" in his attempt to restrain Neely, showing an “indifference” toward his life even after he had lost consciousness and stopped fighting back.

Penny, an architecture student who served four years in the U.S. Marines, told police he was seeking to protect himself and other riders from a man who was acting erratically on the train and frightening riders with distressing comments. His attorneys have emphasized Neely's previous arrests, along with his struggles with mental illness and drug use.

Bystander video of the encounter shows Penny with his bicep pressed across Neely’s neck and his other arm on top of his head, a position he held for close to six minutes, even after the man went limp.

The technique — an apparent “blood choke” — can make a person feel like “trying to breathe through a crushed straw,” Caballer said. In his own training sessions, Caballer recalled telling his fellow Marines: “You don’t want to keep holding on. This can result in actual injury or death.”

Asked by prosecutors whether Penny has used the chokehold in an “improper” manner, Caballer said that he had.

Attorneys for Penny argue their client had sought to restrain Neely by placing him in a headlock, but that he did not apply strong force throughout the interaction. They have raised doubt about the city medical examiner’s finding that Neely died from the chokehold, pointing to his health problems and drug use as possible factors.

Pressed by Penny’s attorney, Caballer acknowledged that he could not “definitively tell from watching the video how much pressure is actually being applied.” But at times, he said, it appeared that Penny was using a hold that may have cut off the flow of blood to Neely's brain.

“He could possibly be cutting off maybe one of the carotid arteries,” the witness added.

Later in the afternoon, Dr. Cynthia Harris, the city medical examiner who inspected Neely’s body, reiterated her finding that he had died from a lack of oxygen caused by the chokehold. Though she did not describe the exact process of asphyxiation, she testified that "blocking both arteries in both veins, could kill a person in a matter of seconds.”

Jurors were also shown video for the first time Thursday of Penny demonstrating the chokehold to detectives during an interview inside the precinct.

“He had his back turned to me and I got him in a hold, got him to the ground, and he’s still squirming around and going crazy,” Penny said, adding: “He gets a burst of energy at one point and I did have to hold him a little more steady.”

Harris is expected to be the final witnesses called by prosecutors in a trial that has divided New Yorkers and cast a national spotlight on the city’s response to crime and disorder in its transit system. It's unclear whether Penny will take the stand.

In the eighteen months since the killing, Penny has been embraced by conservatives as a good Samaritan who used his military training to protect his fellow riders. U.S. Rep. U.S. Matt Gaetz, who President-elect Donald Trump nominated this week as his attorney general, described him as a “Subway Superman.”

But the trial has also drawn near daily protests from Black Lives Matter activists, who've labeled Penny a racist vigilante who overreacted to a Black man in the throes of a mental health episode.

Penny faces up to 15 years in prison if he is convicted.

In this image from body camera video provided by New York City Police Department, emergency medical personnel in a New York City subway car attempt to revive Jordan Neely after he was placed in a chokehold by Daniel Penny on May 5, 2023. (New York City Police Department via AP)

Daniel Penny arrives at the court after break in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)