Marines assigned to the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit take tactical positions during an amphibious beach assault demonstration for Exercise Bright Star in Alexandria, Egypt on Oct. 12, 2009. The restart next month of the biannual Bright Star exercise, a bilateral effort now focused on counterterrorism operations, comes as Egypt struggles to contain a potent insurgency on the Sinai peninsula. Though Egypt may invite other countries such as Sudan as observers, only U.S. and Egyptian forces will take the field, U.S. defense officials said. The renewal comes just months after Trump welcomed Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to the White House in April, showering him with praise for fighting extremists at home and and in North Africa. "The Egyptian military has been fighting and losing an insurgency in the Sinai for the last several years," Schenker said, and has shown little interest in restructuring its large and lumbering military to fight an entrenched insurgency.

Source: The North Africa Journal August 15, 2017 15:56 UTC