The military industry of

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

produces defense and security products that range from "small arms to armored vehicles to naval vessels" for the

Egyptian Armed Forces The Egyptian Armed Forces ( arz, القُوّات المُسَلَّحَة المِصْرِيَّة, alquwwat almusalahat almisria) are the military forces of the Arab Republic of Egypt. They consist of the Egyptian Army, Egyptian Navy, Egyptia ...

and export. Egypt also has co-production agreements with several countries, including the United States and France.

History

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

approached its end, Egypt came into possession of a large quantity and variety of armaments left behind by Nazi Germany. This included large stockpiles of 8mm Mauser ammunition that had been manufactured by several Axis countries. The Egyptian government decided to manufacture a semi-automatic battle rifle and purchased the tooling and plans for the Swedish Automatgevär m/42 (Ag m/42) rifle, and re-engineered it to use the 8mm Mauser cartridges and a gas adjustment valve. The resulting

Hakim Rifle The Hakim Rifle is a gas operated semi-automatic rifle. It was originally designed by Sweden and produced as the Ag m/42 for the Swedish Army. The tooling and design were later sold to Egypt, and the Hakim was produced there during the 1950s a ...

was manufactured and fielded from the early 1950s until about 1961. Egypt also briefly manufactured another re-engineered Ag ms/42, chambered for the

7.62×39mm The 7.62×39mm (aka 7.62 Soviet, formerly .30 Russian Short) round is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge of Soviet origin. The cartridge is widely used due to the worldwide proliferation of Russian SKS and AK-47 pattern rifles, as ...

Soviet cartridge, called the

Rasheed Carbine The Rasheed (or ''Rashid'') is a semi-automatic carbine, derived from the Hakim Rifle and used by the Egyptian military. Only around 8,000 were made. The Rasheed was designed by the Swedish engineer Erik Eklund, who based it on his previous Hak ...

. These guns were replaced in the 1960s by the Maadi AK-47, a licensed copy of the widely distributed Soviet automatic assault rifle. During the late 1950s, Egypt built the Jabal Hamzah ballistic missile test and launch facility to test-fire and to experiment with the indigenously built Al Zafir and Al Kahir

SRBM A short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) is a ballistic missile with a range of about or less. In past and potential regional conflicts, these missiles have been and would be used because of the short distances between some countries and their rela ...

Operation Cyclone

Egypt was involved in supplying the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

with various weapons for

Operation Cyclone Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to arm and finance the Afghan mujahideen in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1992, prior to and during the military intervention by the USSR in suppor ...

during the

Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. It saw extensive fighting between the Soviet Union and the Afghan mujahideen (alongside smaller groups of anti-Sovie ...

. CIA Officer

Gust Avrakotos Gustav Lascaris Avrakotos (January 14, 1938 – December 1, 2005) was an American case officer and the Afghan Task Force Chief for the Central Intelligence Agency. Avrakotos joined the CIA in August 1962 and was posted to Greece in 1963. Followi ...

set up a deal with Egyptian Defense Minister Abd al-Halim Abu Ghazala for Egypt to manufacture .303 ammunition for the hundreds of thousands of

Lee–Enfield The Lee–Enfield or Enfield is a bolt-action, magazine-fed repeating rifle that served as the main firearm of the military forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the first half of the 20th century, and was the British Army's sta ...

rifles that it supplied to the Afghan mujahideen through Pakistan's

Inter Services Intelligence The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI; ur, , bayn khadamatiy mukhabarati) is the premier intelligence agency of Pakistan. It is responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing any information from around the world that is deemed relevant ...

. Congressman Charlie Wilson helped lower political barriers for the deals to go through. Charlie Wilson's War, George Crile, 2003, Grove/Atlantic.

Organisation

The military industry in Egypt is organised across the following organisations: * Egyptian Armaments Authority (EAA) which serves as the Egyptian military's acquisition arm for military hardware *

Arab Organization for Industrialization The Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI) ( ar, الهيئة العربية للتصنيع) is an Egypt-based Arab military organization established in 1975 by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar to supervise the collecti ...

(AOI) which owns and operates 23 defense manufacturing factories and the Egyptian Aerospace research center * National Service Projects Organization (NSPO) which owns several companies and supplies the Egyptian military and exports excess products * Armed Forces Engineering Authority (AEA) which is responsible for mega projects

Egyptian Defense Expo

The Egyptian Defense Expo (EDEX) is held in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

every two years.

References

{{Military of Egypt Military of Egypt Science and technology in Egypt

History

Operation Cyclone

Organisation

Egyptian Defense Expo

See also

References