Ahmad Ismail Ali ( ar, أحمد إسماعيل علي) (14 October 1917 – 26 December 1974) was the Commander-in-Chief of
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
's army and minister of war during the
October War of 1973, and is best known for his planning of the attack across the
Suez Canal, code-named
Operation Badr. Ali's mother was of partial
Albanian descent.
He graduated from the
Military Academy
A military academy or service academy is an educational institution which prepares candidates for service in the officer corps. It normally provides education in a military environment, the exact definition depending on the country concerned. ...
in 1938 and was a colleague of both the late President
Anwar Sadat
Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, (25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 ...
and President
Gamal Abdel Nasser in the Academy. After graduating with the rank of second lieutenant, he joined the infantry and served the Second World War and fought in the 1948
Palestine War, the
1956 Tripartite Aggression and the
1967 war. He became in 1969 the
Chief of Staff The Egyptian army and then was dismissed by President Abdel Nasser because of the famous
Zafarana incident. Then President Sadat returned him to the service as head of the
General Intelligence
The ''g'' factor (also known as general intelligence, general mental ability or general intelligence factor) is a construct developed in psychometric investigations of cognitive abilities and human intelligence. It is a variable that summarizes ...
, then he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General and became Minister of War in 1972. He fought the October War and died in 1974.
Military career
* Graduated from Egypt's
Royal Military Academy in 1938.
* Commissioned in an Infantry regiment.
* Served with the
Allies in the
Western Desert against the
Axis
An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis
* Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinat ...
during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
* Fought as an infantry battalion commander in the
1948 Arab-Israeli War.
* Later received training in
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...
* Saw active service during the 1956
Suez Crisis, and undertook further training in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
* Served as a division commander during the 1967
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 Ju ...
of 1967
* Head,
Military Operations Authority
* Appointed
Chief of the General Staff The Chief of the General Staff (CGS) is a post in many armed forces (militaries), the head of the military staff.
List
* Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ( United States)
* Chief of the General Staff (Abkhazia)
* Chief of General Staff (Af ...
in March 1969, but was dismissed by
President Nasser in September 1969 following successful
Israeli raids during the
War of Attrition
The War of Attrition ( ar, حرب الاستنزاف, Ḥarb al-Istinzāf; he, מלחמת ההתשה, Milhemet haHatashah) involved fighting between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and their allies from ...
. Nasser's successor as President,
Anwar Al-Sadat
Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, (25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 ...
, however, named him chief of intelligence in September 1970.
* From 1971 to 1972 he served as head of the
Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate
The General Intelligence Service ( ar, جهاز المخابرات العامة ; GIS), often referred to as the Mukhabarat ( ar, المخابرات ) is an Egyptian intelligence agency responsible for providing national security intelligence, b ...
.
He graduated in 1938 with the rank of second lieutenant and joined the infantry. Then he went on the training mission to Deir Safir in Palestine in 1945, and he ranked first among the Egyptian and English officers. His talent began to shine in the Second World War, in which he participated as an intelligence officer in the Western Sahara. In the Palestine war, he became the commander of an infantry company in Rafah and Gaza, and that experience qualified him to be the first to establish the nucleus of the
Sa’ika Forces. He was at the rank of (Colonel) and commanded the 3rd Infantry Brigade in Rafah and then Qantara Sharq during the tripartite aggression carried out by Britain, France and Israel against Egypt in the fall of 1956.
In 1957, he went to military academy in the Soviet Union, and in the same year he worked as a senior teacher at the Military academy in Egypt, after which he left it and took command of the 2nd Infantry Division, which he reconstituted to be the first combatant formation in the Egyptian Armed Forces. In 1960, the old centers of power tried to overthrow him, and he was at the rank of (brigadier) and after 1967, those centers found a justification to overthrow him, and indeed they succeeded in that, but President (Gamal Abdel Nasser) summoned him and handed him the command of the forces east of the Suez Canal, and only three months after The 1967 battles he established the first defensive line and reorganized, trained and armed these forces, and after a short period these forces were able to fight the battle of
Ras al-Esh, the Battle of Green Island, and the sinking of the Israeli destroyer (Eilat).
In October 1972, Ali accompanied Prime Minister
Aziz Sidqi on a visit to Moscow, and, on his return, stifled a coup attempt against President Sadat. That same month, he replaced the anti-Soviet general
Mohammed Ahmed Sadek
Mohammed Ahmed Sadek ( ar, محمد أحمد صادق; 14 October 1917 – 25 March 1991) was an Egyptian colonel general who served as defense minister under the rule of President Anwar Sadat.
Education
Sadek graduated from the Egypt's military ...
as Minister of Defence, and was promoted to full general. His skill as a strategist, and his success in reviving the morale of the
Egyptian army became evident in the October War of 1973. Following the war, he was made a Field Marshal in November 1973.
Death
Ali died in December 1974 from advanced cancer in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, at the age of just 57.
Cultural depictions
Television
* Ahmed Ismail Ali was portrayed by Egyptian actor
Salah Zulfikar
Salah El Din Ahmed Mourad Zulfikar ( ar, صلاح ذو الفقار; ; 18 January 1926 – 22 December 1993) was an Egyptian actor and film producer. He started his career as a police officer in the Egyptian National Police, before becoming an ac ...
in the 1993 television series ''The Fox (Al-Tha'lab'') which aired on
Egyptian television
Television in Egypt is mainly received through free satellite, while analog terrestrial represents 41% of total viewers. The Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) said the average time an Egyptian spends watching televisio ...
in Egypt and the Arab world.
References
External links
Defencejournal.com ArticleBritannica.com Article
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ali, Ismail
1917 births
1974 deaths
Military personnel from Cairo
Field marshals of Egypt
Defence Ministers of Egypt
Egyptian people of the Yom Kippur War
Egyptian Military Academy alumni
Egyptian people of World War II
Directors of the General Intelligence Directorate (Egypt)
Deaths from cancer in England
Chiefs of the General Staff (Egypt)