The "Bright Star" maneuvers start in Egypt tomorrow

The 12-day "Bright Star 2018" exercise will take place in Egypt on Saturday with the participation of forces from the host country, the United States, Greece, Jordan, Britain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Italy and France, along with 16 other countries as observers.

The Egyptian side preceded the launch of the exercises by announcing a training that was already "to exchange experiences in the field of combating terrorism between the forces of the Egyptian Thunderbolt and elements of the US Special Forces."

The military spokesman in the Egyptian army said in a statement that the training between the forces of lightning and elements of the US Special Forces "aims to unify the operational concepts and training on joint teamwork and the rehabilitation of forces to implement the planned stages of future."

He explained that the training included "holding many theoretical and practical lectures in the field of combating terrorism, methods of combating IEDs, training in air and sea refraction, offensive diving, medical insurance, the implementation of non-standard firearms with live ammunition from various weapons and training to penetrate a terrorist outpost."

Security cooperation
This comes as the flow to Egypt continues by the forces participating in the training of the bright star from 8 to 20 September - where a number of air bases arrived to various countries with individuals and equipment involved.

The training exercises deal with "security cooperation, counter-terrorism and training in all scenarios of different threats under conventional and irregular warfare".

The military spokesman said the exercises "contribute to strengthening strategic and security relations" between the United States and Egypt.

The series of Bright Star exercises has been in place since 1981, but former US President Barack Obama has decided to suspend them in 2011 after the January 25 revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak and resumed last year as Cairo held joint military exercises with the US side. The exercises begin for the second year in a row.