Egyptian Chief Of Staff Given Hero’s Funeral

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31934, 11 March 1969, Page 15

Egyptian Chief Of Staff Given Hero’s Funeral

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) CAIRO, March 10. Egypt today will give a hero’s funeral to her top soldier, Lieutenant-General Abdul Moneim Riad, killed by an Israeli shell during fierce week-end artillery duels across the Suez Canal.

General Riad, 49-year-old bachelor Chief of Staff, died when his observation post was hit as I Israeli and Egyptian troops blasted each other with artillery mortars and machineguns for the second successive day yesterday along a 70-mile stretch of the canal from Kantara to south of Suez.

An official communique said he died instantly, but the authoritative “Al Ahram” newspaper later said he was rushed critically wounded to Ismailia Hospital in his own staff car but died shortly afterwards.

His body later was driven in an Army ambulance to a Cairo hospital where it lay overnight before the planned funeral services this morning with full State and military honours in Cairo’s Liberation Square. The official statement said: “In defiance of dangers he advanced to the front line. “An enemy artil ;ry shell hit the position where General Riad stood. It was God’s will that his injury was fatal.”

General Riad, head of the Armed Forces under President Nasser, had arrived in the Suez area for an inspection tour just a short while before the firing started. General Riad, a partly British-trained and muchdecorated soldier, played a key role in reorganising the Egyptian Army, after its snap defeat by Israel in the 1967 six-day war and his loss is a

sore blow to the Arabs. In the six-day war, he commanded the Jordan front. In the Army shake-up

which followed the Arab defeat. he was made Chief of Staff on June 12, 1967, in succession to General Mohamed Fawzy, who became Minister of War. After his death was announced last night, Cairo Radio started playing solemn music with muffled drums. About the same time, the capital’s normally brightly-lit streets were dimmed as a partial black-out—the first since the 1967 war—came into effect.

President Nasser posthumously awarded General Riad the Star of Honour—Egypt’s highest military medal—and said in a statement that he had given his life in a glorious day, in which Egyptian forces had inflicted severe losses on Israel. The President received the news of the General’s death during a two-hour Cabinet meeting called to discuss the situation along the canal. “Al Ahram” said General Fawzy gave a detailed report to the Cabinet on the clashes along the waterway. It added that General Fawzy kept in constant touch with President Nasser at the week-end to inform him of developments. A military communique claimed at least 100 Israelis were killed or wounded, three planes shot down and 31 tanks destroyed in Sunday’s fighting. The communique said that,

as on Saturday, the Israelis shelled the Suez oil refineries, setting three more storage tanks on fire. Ships in the area also came under fire.

Egyptian military losses were put at three killed and 13 injured. Civilian areas were also shelled but no details of casualties were issued.

To back the black-out regulations, the Interior Ministry has Issued instructions for air-raid drills to be carried out all over the country.