Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has reminded the uniformed services of the importance of loyalty in preserving Malaysia’s security.

In a speech addressing representatives of 13 agencies in conjunction with Nuzul Al Quran today, he said the Muslim armies under Prophet Muhammad were able to defeat the numerically superior opponent at the Battle of Badr despite fasting for Ramadan, because they had obeyed the Prophet’s orders.

In contrast at the Battle of Uhud a year later, the Prophet’s army suffered a setback when his soldiers disobeyed his orders in a bid to reap the spoils of war.

In a more contemporary setting, he said, betrayal had cost lives at Kampung Simunul, Semporna, during the Sulu incursion of 2013.

“When our own people betrayed their comrades, when they fed information to our enemies, our enemies surrounded and ambushed.

“In the end, 10 people died, because we had no loyalty. All there was is a readiness to betray who? Our rakyat.

“This is a lesson to us all. That’s the principle of loyalty is so important. God willing if we are loyal, success is not unattainable to us,” he said at the Putra World Trade Centre today.

He was speaking as the Umno president at a Wanita Umno’s Ramadan function with 13 uniformed services today, including the armed forces, the police, immigration department, road transport department, prisons department, and the Health Ministry’s nursing division.

At total of 11,500 packs of gifts were prepared for the personnel present at the function, according to Umno women’s chief Shahrizat Abdul Jalil.

Meanwhile, Najib praised the security forces for keeping the peace during Ramadan, even as cities around the world were beset by security incidents.

He said Malaysia now ranks 30 out of 163 countries on the Global Peace Index and has thus far been spared of major security incidents.

This did not happen by accident, he said as he congratulated the security forces, but because of their sacrifices and the government’s willingness to allow them to take pre-emptive measures.

“When we look at the television: Manchester, Kabul, London, Jakarta, Marawi, and never mind Syria. So far, thank God, there is no Kuala Lumpur. Thank God, I said every time I watched the TV, afraid that something might have happened but did not, but not by accident.

“It doesn’t happen by accident. When I speak to military and police officers, they know, but I am also addressing the whole nation that these things don’t happen by accident.

“Why it doesn’t happen? Because of the sacrifice of our security forces, and the efforts that we have made because we were bold enough to take pre-emptive action; because the government under Umno said you are allowed to take pre-emptive action, and this prevented what happened in other countries from happening here,” he said.

Manchester, Kabul, London, and Jakarta had each suffered bombings over the past month, while Marawi had been taken over by an armed militant group. Meanwhile, a six-year-old civil war rages on in Syria, drawing in various extremist groups while displacing millions of people.