U.S. starts big M.E. exercise

Press, 16 November 1981, Page 8

U.S. starts big M.E. exercise

NZPA Cairo More than 800 American paratroopers, many of whom had flown non-stop from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, bailed out over the Egyptian desert around the Cairo West air base yesterday as the largest American military exercise in the Middle East since World War II got under way.

The operation, called Bright Star, is being conducted by 5000 American fighting men in co-operation with the governments of Somalia, Oman, Sudan, and Egypt. The largest part of the three-week exercise is, in Egypt, with 4000 Americans and 4000 Egyptian soldiers participating. . The exercise began as Egypt officially ended a mourning period for President Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated on October 6 at a military parade. Jihan Sadat, his widow, visited his grave and he was eulogised in Cairo by President Hosni Mubarak.

The Bright Star exercise, which was planned long before Mr Sadat’s death, is three times as large as a

similar joint military exercise with Egypt last year. The air drop in a vast desert wasteland near the Cairo West military base began in the early morning as six AlO ground-attack planes called Wart Hogs began making passes at a designated zone about skm long where the paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division were to drop 250 m.

After the AlOs came CI4IS parachuting platforms of heavy equipment, including artillery and quarter-tonne jeeps. One all-purpose vehicle called a Gamma Goat was-smashed when its parachute failed to open.

Three minutes after the equipment drop, the parachutists bailed out on schedule and the sky was suddenly filled with large mushroom shapes that drifted lazily towards the earth.

The Rapid Deployment Force, which is headed by Lieutenant-General Robert Kingston, was created in 1980 to respond swiftly to “contingencies threatening United States vital interests,” according to the Pentagon.