Egyptian Army | |
---|---|
![]() Egyptian Army insignia | |
Country | ![]() |
Type | Army |
Role | Land warfare |
Size | 310,000 active[1] |
March | "We painted the face of our nation on our hearts." (Arabic: رسمنا على القلب وجه الوطن, rasamna ala al qalb wagh al watan) |
Commanders | |
Second Field Army | Major General Mohammed el-Shahat |
Third Field Army | Major General Osama Askar |
The Egyptian Army is the largest service branch in the Egyptian Armed Forces. The modern army was started by Muhammad Ali Pasha (ruled 1805–1849), the founder of modern Egypt.
The most significant engagements by this army in the 20th century were in Egypt's five wars with the State of Israel (in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1967–1970, and 1973). In one of those wars, the Suez Crisis of 1956, the army also struggled against the forces of Britain, and France.
The Egyptian army also engaged in the North Yemen civil war, and the brief Libyan-Egyptian War in July 1977. Its last major engagement was Operation Desert Storm, the liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation in 1991, in this operation, the Egyptian army was the second-largest of the allied forces.
In 2014, the army had about 310,000 soldiers, approximately 90,000–120,000 of them are professionals, while the rest are conscripts.