Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi inaugurated Saturday the Mohamed Naguib Military Base, located in Al-Hammam area, west of Alexandria, where it will hold its first graduation of military students, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported.

The base, reportedly the largest in the Middle East, is built on what used to be a military city, constructed in 1993, and consists of 1,155 buildings built and renovated over the past two years.

The military base will also serve as a headquarters to some forces of the Northern Military Unit, which is expected to increase its efficiency in protecting west of Alexandria, the North Coast, the currently under construction Al-Dabaa nuclear power plant, oil fields, the new Alamein City, among other sites.

The base will also be used in military exercises with the armies of other countries.

The base is named after Mohamed Naguib, the primary leader of the Egyptian revolution in 1952 and the first president of the Republic of Egypt after its establishment on18 June 1953. 

Along with Gamal Abdel-Nasser, Naguib led the Free Officers movement, which ended the Mohamed Ali Dynasty that ruled over Egypt and Sudan from 1805 until 1952.

It is expected that the base will have a museum commemorating Naguib as well as a mosque with a capacity for 2,000 individuals, and sports fields and swimming pools.

The base also consists of a production unit to achieve self-sufficiency with 379 feddans of fruit trees and 1,600 feddans of seasonal plants and vegetables.