On 30 June, Egypt marks Air Defence Forces (ADF) Day, which pays tribute to the fourth branch of the Egyptian Armed Forces.
The long and heroic struggle to establish the ADF began on 1 February 1968. “We were under immense pressure from enemy air raids during the War of Attrition, so the Air Defence Forces had to be equipped and trained as quickly as possible,” Air Marshal Yasser Al-Toudi explained in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly.
Not long afterwards, on the morning of 30 June 1970, the new force scored a milestone victory in Egyptian military history by downing 12 of the enemy’s advanced Phantom and Skyhawk warplanes and capturing their pilots.
It was the first time that a Phantom had been shot down. Other enemy aircraft followed in the same week, causing it to be dubbed the “Falling Phantoms Week”. The Air Defence Forces have since adopted 30 June each year to celebrate their anniversary.
The day was made possible by the legendary “Missile Wall”, a heavily fortified defensive line constructed under relentless enemy fire, Al-Toudi said. It consisted of layers of anti-aircraft missiles and artillery in fortified positions, and its mission was to furnish air cover for major ground formations, as well as airbases and other vital installations along the Suez Canal’s western front.
The fortitude and determination of Egypt’s military engineers, air defence personnel, and civilian workers despite continuous enemy strikes were truly heroic, he said.
The success of the ADF at preventing enemy warplanes from approaching the Suez Canal eventually forced Israel to accept the Rogers Ceasefire Initiative on 8 August 1970. This success laid the cornerstone of the ADF’s contribution to the great chapter in Egyptian military history that was the victory in the October 1973 War.
During the ceasefire, ADF personnel began to rearm for the battle to liberate occupied Egyptian territory and regain national dignity. They installed modern SAM-3 and SAM-6 systems, strengthened combat training and readiness, and successfully drove off enemy aerial reconnaissance planes from the Suez Canal, Al-Toudi recalled.
On 17 September 1971, they achieved another landmark with the downing of the Stratotanker electronic surveillance aircraft.
During the 1973 War itself, the ADF was crucial to the success of the crossing of the Suez Canal. “We provided missile coverage for the main ground forces’ concentrations and vital assets across the country,” Al-Toudi said. On the night of 6-7 October, the ADF shot down more than 25 enemy warplanes, captured their pilots, and damaged many other planes. Enemy commanders were forced to order their pilots not to come within 15 km of the Suez Canal.
According to Al-Toudi, in the first three days of the war, the enemy lost more than a third of its aircraft and elite pilots. On the fourth day, then Israeli defence minister Moshe Dayan publicly admitted that he could not breach the Egyptian missile shield. On 14 October, he acknowledged how costly the war had been for the Israeli Air Force.
By the end of that epic campaign, El-Toudi said, Egypt’s air defences had inflicted losses on 326 enemy aircraft and captured 22 pilots, enabling Egypt to claim the fruits of peace from a position of strength.
DEVELOPMENT: In the decades since then, offensive weapons and military technologies have developed by leaps and bounds.
Advanced stealth aircraft, the widespread use of drones for diverse purposes, and middle- to long-range cruise and ballistic missiles demand sophisticated, integrated, and multipurpose air defence systems, Al-Toudi said, explaining that such systems must combine detection and surveillance platforms, early warning systems, and layers of missiles and artillery of different ranges to intercept hostile aircraft and projectiles.
All these must be governed by command-and-control centres that closely link and coordinate with naval, ground, and electronic warfare forces. “The overall aim is to sustain constant pressure on the enemy, reduce its offensive capacities, deny penetration to its air operations, and minimise losses for our own forces,” he explained.
“In the current ‘open skies’ era in which the world has become an interconnected ‘global village’ where information has become readily accessible through satellite technologies, electronic surveillance systems, global data networks, not to mention AI-assisted real-time analysis, it’s not enough just to have the most modern technologies in your possession,” Al-Toudi said.
“The secret lies in how to develop them in innovative and unconventional ways to ensure the optimum execution of a military mission.”
He stressed that the ADF believes that its real wealth resides in its individual soldiers. “They are the basic building-blocks of the air defence combat system,” Al-Toudi said, adding that the ADF leadership has developed a strategy for building their skills and capabilities.
This involves the development of the combatant’s character and practical education and training. The emphasis is on the development of the soldier’s intellectual framework by cultivating a mindset rooted in moral principles and core values, such as loyalty and patriotism. It also entails immunising the soldier against psychological warfare, extremist ideologies, and subversive thought.
What lessons are to be learned from recent military operations in the region?
Air Marshal Al-Toudi said that these developments have revealed the emergence of new centres of strength where outcomes are determined to a large extent by aerial superiority. This is obtained mainly through the deployment of multi-role stealth fighters equipped with advanced radar systems and multiple hardpoints on which can be mounted diverse high-precision smart munitions, which can be fired from afar and have the power to penetrate heavily fortified positions.
The combat activities of these aircraft are conducted under the guidance and protection of command-and-control electronic warfare planes. They are also accompanied by aerial refuelling aircraft, enabling long-range operations with maximum weapons loads, dispensing of the need to return to base for refuelling, he explained.
Another recent development is the intensive use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which Al-Toudi said are being used for various offensive and defensive purposes, such as reconnaissance and surveillance, signals jamming and other electronic warfare tasks, delivering explosives, and decoy purposes.
They can also be launched in large swarms to disrupt command-and-control systems and exhaust missile defences, he said.
Similar qualitative advances have been achieved in missiles. He pointed out that the use of cruise and ballistic missiles has recently expanded, including hypersonic systems, manoeuvrable warheads, and multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) for saturation tactics.
The integration of AI has also given modern aerial weapon systems an edge, as it has increased precision exponentially, enabled attackers to bypass aerial defence zones, and facilitated cyberattacks on infrastructure and data systems ahead of missile or air strikes.
An integrated aerial defence system must keep pace with all these technological advances, he stressed.
“A multi-layered, multi-range concept is essential to engage with diverse threats,” he noted, adding that this entails the deployment of fighter aircraft at interception lines, as well as combat helicopters, air defence systems aboard naval units, electronic warfare elements, and missile and anti-aircraft artillery systems with a range of capabilities.
It also involves the extensive deployment of non-conventional systems to counter UAVs and smart munitions. These include integrated jamming systems, decoys, laser systems, and high-power electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons.
At the hub of all these systems are the command-and-control centres, which are responsible for collecting, filtering, identifying, and analysing information, assessing the threat levels of incoming targets, and assigning to them the most efficient means to intercept and neutralise the threats.
According to Al-Toudi, “as military men, we operate according to specific plans, programmes, and clearly defined objectives. At the same time, we keep close track of the developments and changes taking place in the region, especially as these relate to the threats that Egypt faces from all strategic directions.”
“Such developments understandably raise concerns about the future. However, the Egyptian Armed Forces will always remain committed to maintaining the highest degree of combat readiness in both wartime and peacetime and to implementing the strategies and programmes that serve this purpose.”
He added that for the ADF, combat readiness was a permanent objective. “It means that we continually strive to ensure that our forces are capable of carrying out their missions successfully under all conceivable conditions.”
Such a high and sustained level of readiness requires “equipping ourselves appropriately in accordance with the most rigorous and precisely calibrated standards. Our sights are constantly trained on preparing for tomorrow,” he concluded.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 3 July, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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