“No Hit to Ennahda Dam"; Why did El-Sisi Buy new French Weapons?

With every deal made by the Egyptian regime to buy French Rafale aircraft, It was followed by media revelations about another "secret" deal that was more important and more dangerous than the announcement.

On February 16, 2015, Egypt purchased 24 Rafale aircraft, in a deal estimated at 5.2 billion euros with other equipment.

A year and a half later, specifically on August 20, 2016, the French newspaper "La Tribune" revealed the signing of another deal, which was not announced in Egypt, it included the purchase of four luxury presidential aircraft for 300 million euros.

It was repeated again when Cairo announced on May 3, 2021, a new Rafale deal, it provides for the purchase of 30 aircraft worth 3.95 billion euros.

The “La Tribune” returned and revealed after 3 days that “Rafale” deal is behind “another secret deal”, and It aims to provide the most important weapon Egypt needs to hit the Ethiopian Ennahda Dam, as Egypt intended to do so.

The newspaper explained that another Egyptian-French deal "behind the Rafale contract" will be announced soon (the date has not been set), Egypt is buying a French spy and surveillance satellite.

The deal also includes two “Airbus 330 MRTT” refueling aircraft, and 4 French “GM 400” early warning radars; these agreements will come into force in June or July 2021.

The importance of the new Egyptian-French agreement boils down to two things, according to observers, the first thing is that Cairo desperately needs refueling aircraft, to provide Rafale aircraft if you decide to travel to The Ennahda Dam in Ethiopia, parts of it were bombed to stop the second filling scheduled for July 2021.

The second is that Egypt is seeking to monitor Ethiopian air defenses around the Ennahda Dam very accurately, so that no mistakes occur in the light of Ethiopian silence about its preparations to defend the Ennahda Dam.

Strong Ethiopian Defense

An informed Egyptian military expert said: “Cairo is closely monitoring Ethiopia's military movements in the Ennahda dam area, just like you're watching every brick put in to build the dam”.

He added in an interview with “Al-Estiklal” that Cairo is suspicious of the Ethiopian blackout on the response to possible attacks on the dam, especially after the head of the coup regime Abdel Fattah El-Sisi talked about a “red line”, and it notes from his speech about the military action.

The expert explained, asking not to be named: “Egypt knows that Ethiopia is not naive, that pushes it to leave the Ennahda Dam without strong air defenses, Therefore, it seeks to know the Ethiopian defense systems operating there accurately, if you decide on any military action”.

Egypt's move follows unconfirmed reports that Ethiopia may have advanced air defense missile systems, maybe the Chinese “FD-2000” or the Russian “S-300” to repel Egyptian planes, unlike the “Pantsir” system it bought from Moscow, it was overcome on it by Turkish drones in Libya and Azerbaijan.

Both the Chinese and Russian defense systems are used to protect strategic objectives, such as the Ennahda Dam.

Walid Sami, an Egyptian expert in military information technology, asked on his twitter account: “Has Ethiopia obtained a long-range air defense system (S-300) or HQ-9 (FD-2000)?

He said that he had monitored through google earth pictures of Ethiopian air defense sites around the Ennahda Dam captured on April 24, 2021, it shows the presence of either the Chinese “FD-2000” missile system or the Russian “S-300”.

He explained that no weapons deals involving any of these advanced defense systems have been recorded in the military references, the “SiPRI” Institute, which monitors arms sales, also has "mysterious" information on Ethiopian armaments between 1996 and 2020.

“SiPRI's” indicators show that Ethiopia's arms imports have declined from 2013 to 2017, then it increased slightly in 2018 and 2019, “This is strange for a country that has tensions with its neighbors and may face possible wars!”.

Sami raised the possibility that Ethiopia might be manipulating the numbers posted on “SiPRI” to hide the potential “HQ-9/FD-2000” or “S-300” deal, specifically, the Ethiopian survey “SAM” sites, especially around the Ennahda Dam, it shows a change in the location of Ethiopian air defense batteries “possibly to hide the new missiles”.

Who is Supporting Ethiopia?

But an important question arises in this context, who provided Ethiopia with an undisclosed long-range air defense system?

According to “SiPRI”, Ethiopia supplies weapons from Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine.

If we exclude the first three countries because they can't sell “S-300” missiles, as a result of defensive needs, or a special political and military relationship with Russia, we can limit who can deliver these missiles to Ethiopia in Russia and Ukraine, observers say.

But Russia has announced most of Ethiopia's special arms deals, including the “Pantsir” missile system in 2018-2019, so only Ukraine remains as a potential supplier to Ethiopia.

On February 24, 2021, The Arab Defense published a picture, he said it is widely circulated on social media sites for air defense systems protecting the Ethiopian Ennahda Dam.

According to the image, the site contains 12 missiles from the Ukrainian-developed “Pichora-2-M” system, it is a medium-range air defense system from Russian soviet-era, it is mainly based on the “Sam-3” missile system.

This does not prevent an intermediary between Ukraine and Ethiopia, and that the invisible intermediary is the “Zionist arms dealers”, who work in coordination with Israeli intelligence, according to military experts.

In July 2019, Hebrew press reports reported that two Israeli companies, they are “Space Industries” and “Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd”, had installed Israel's “Spyder-MR” defense systems near the Ennahda Dam.

However, Egyptian sources denied to Russia Today on July 7, 2019, what the Israeli intelligence website “Deepika” said at the time, it questioned the credibility of the Hebrew sites, but did not provide documented evidence of the existence or absence of an Israeli defense system around the dam.

According to this information, the Ethiopian Air Defense is expected to have the capability to engage, and detect threats on different long-range ranges (e.g., Rafale aircraft), this is done by these various advanced missile systems.

Refueling

If Egypt decides to launch a military hit on the Ennahda Dam before the second meeting in July 2021, the targeting needs long-range aircraft, and missiles capable of hitting fortified targets.

The distance between the southern base (Bernice) in Aswan province and the Ethiopian Ennahda Dam is 1,500 kilometers.

So, the process needs the quality of long-range aircraft or capable of refueling, this is something Egypt missed before the last deal announced by “La Tribune”, by supplying Egypt with two “Airbus 330 MRTT” refueling aircraft.

Egypt has a Sukhoi 35 capable of flying for 4,500 km, increasing to 5,200 km after refueling by air, but Cairo currently has only four aircraft, it is not enough alone to carry out a military strike and to maneuver Ethiopian air defenses.

That's why rafale aircraft with a range of up to 3,200 km are important, i.e. They can go and return, but it faces the risk of length of operation if there is a clash, and a lack of fuel, that's why it's important for Egypt to get fuel planes after carrying out its mission.

The American Institute of Stratfor which is near to the intelligence agencies, considered the length of distance between Egypt and the Ennahda Dam, and Egypt did not own long-term aircraft (when the report was released on June 10, 2013), is the obstacle in hitting the dam.

He noted that “Egypt's limited military options to stop the Ethiopian dam project” prevented the Egyptian army from hitting the dam.

But Egypt's subsequent gain of Rafale, and then refueling aircraft, ended this weak possibility and strengthened its ability to hit the dam if the El-Sisi regime wanted that.

Spy Moon Story

In its report on May 6, 2021, “La Tribune” announced that the new "secret" deal, which would be announced later, Egypt has gained a French spy and surveillance satellite from Airbus Defense and Space.

This surveillance satellite and military communications have already announced that Egypt has bought it twice, the first was in December 2015 following Rafale's first deal.

The second is on April 15, 2016, during former French President Francois Hollande's visit to Cairo, “The deal was said to have been hampered by the high price of the moon”.

According to the newspaper "La Tribune" at the time on April 15, 2016, military deals included the signing of Egypt's purchase of a 600-million-euro military communications satellite.

"France has offered Egypt to buy another military surveillance satellite, “But Cairo found the value of the deal particularly high compared to low offers from Russia and South Korea”.

As for why the deal was concluded this time to include the military moon and two refueling aircraft along with 30 Rafale aircraft, French Defense Minister Florence Parly summed it up by confirming to Reuters on May 4, 2021, that “the deal will create 7,000 jobs for the French over three years”.

On May 4, 2021, the French magazine “Le Point” said: “Debts accumulate on Egypt because of these military deals, Paris's facilitation of the deal came out of fear of losing the main agent of French weapons between 2014 and 2018, and turn it into Italian, Russian or German competitors”.

Ennahda or Support for France?

The question remains, does this mean that Egypt already intends to confront Ethiopia? or are they making these deals to support France as a political bribe, for Paris to condone repression and human rights violations, as part of El-Sisi's strategy to provide bribes in the form of arms deals to European countries, including Italy in exchange for condoning repression in the land of the Canaan?

French President Emmanuel Macron said in December 2020: it will not make the sale of weapons to Egypt conditional on human rights, because he does not want to weaken Cairo's ability to fight terrorism in the region, this has angered critics.

Several human rights organizations have accused the French president of ignoring “increasing violations of freedoms in Egypt” by the El-Sisi regime.

Activists and opponents on social media believe that the new Rafale deal is worthless, as long as they are not used to defend Egypt's historical rights in the Nile, Ethiopia insists on the second filling of the Ennahda dam, which will harm Egypt and Sudan.

This was reinforced by the Egyptian intelligence advisor, Mohammed Mujahid al-Zayat, told Al-Arabiya that “There is no link between the Rafale fighter deal and the Ennahda Dam crisis with Ethiopia!”.

If El-Sisi wants war with Ethiopia, he doesn’t need a deal for 30 new aircraft, “Because he has 24 aircraft that were only used to hit Sinai and Libya”.

Activists including Human Rights Watch's Sarah Leah Whitson condemned the signing of a deal for the huge payoff, which exceeds $4.5 billion, it means “more debts that put pressure on Egypt's exhausted economy, and growing poverty”.

The activists called the deal “merely a support for Macron in the face of an economic boycott of the peoples of the Muslim world, instead of directing files such as health, transport and education”.

On the other hand, the military expert, Samir Ragheb, sees Rafale aircraft “provide Egypt with military deterrence in the Ennahda Dam file”.

Ragheb said in an interview with “Al-Hurra” TV on May 4, 2021 that “The use of the military option in the Ennahda Dam file appears in the horizon, after the failure of the negotiations and Ethiopia's insistence on the second filling of the dam without agreement.

He said: “Rafale aircraft are capable of carrying out the attack accurately, and the dam will be destroyed if Egypt decided that”.

“Rafale can travel 3,700 km, which is sufficient distance to carry out the attack on the dam without the need for Sudanese air bases, to target the weakest part of the dam's body, which is the places of electricity generation”.