Egypt Troops in Saudi Arabia for Months, Abdelatty Confirms

Egyptian troops have been stationed in Saudi Arabia for several months to help defend sensitive sites across the kingdom, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty has confirmed, in the first on-record acknowledgement by Cairo that its forces are already on Saudi soil. In a television interview given in Paris during the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting and made public on November 10, Abdelatty stated that the deployment began a few months ago at Riyadh’s request. He linked it to the attacks on the kingdom that followed the outbreak of war between Iran, Israel and the United States in February. He disclosed neither the number of personnel nor their units or weapons, and Saudi Arabia has issued no public comment. The admission places Egyptian forces in the kingdom well before the parliamentary vote of late October, turning that vote from a decision to deploy into the formal approval of a commitment already being carried out.

The minister said the Egyptian role served “defensive objectives to defend sensitive sites, including holy sites and others.” Referring to the forces in the kingdom, he stated: “We already have a military presence there at the request of our brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia to help, and we are strengthening that.” He stated that Egyptian units would remain on Saudi territory and would not cross into Yemen, the limit set by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s office on October 21. Sisi had declared on October 17 that Cairo was ready to provide military help if asked, and the House of Representatives authorised him on October 26 to take the measures needed to strengthen Saudi defences. Silent Dossier reported on November 3 that a formal Saudi request still appeared to be missing as the Houthis neared Aden, and Abdelatty’s account now indicates that Riyadh had asked for Egyptian help months earlier.

The confirmation comes as the kingdom faces a sustained missile and drone campaign by Yemen’s Ansarullah movement, widely known as the Houthis. The Saudi-led coalition stated that a ballistic missile fired toward the Medina region was destroyed on November 5, and coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki reported that three missiles were intercepted overnight into November 10, two of them aimed at Riyadh. Saudi authorities also said the East-West pipeline was targeted near Medina on November 9, causing a limited fire. Air and missile defence is where Egypt can contribute most significantly, with the country having maintained its Air Defence Forces as a separate service branch since 1968 and fielding systems ranging from the French Crotale to the Amoun system, which pairs Skyguard fire control radars with Sparrow missiles and twin 35 millimetre guns.

The deployment is far from the first by Egypt in the kingdom, with more than 30,000 Egyptian troops in two armoured and mechanised divisions having deployed to Saudi Arabia in 1990 and 1991 for Operation Desert Shield and the campaign that expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Egypt joined the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen in 2015 with naval and air units, but its ground forces stayed out of the fighting, a precedent its present insistence on a strictly defensive role inside Saudi Arabia closely follows. Neither government has said whether Egyptian units are positioned around Mecca and Medina or along the kingdom’s southern border with Yemen.