AFP, CAIRO: Joint war games that will involve 30,000 troops from 12 countries — including a large US contingent — kicked off Sunday in Egypt, a senior military official said.
“The exercises will take place in five phases and end on October 15,” General Ahmed Mukhtar was quoted as saying by the official Egyptian news agency MENA.
The participating countries will be Egypt, the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Thirty-six other countries will join as observers.
The war games — which involve air, sea and land forces — are taking place in Egypt's northern El-Alamein region.
The war games are normally held every two years but were called off in 2003 due to the US military's commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. The last Bright Star exercises date back to October 2001 when 18,000 US troops took part.
