Egyptian Army News

Suez Canal Authority (SCA) chairman Mohab Mamish officially called on international maritime navigation lines to use the New Suez Canal, scheduled to be inaugurated August 6. Dubbed the Suez Canal Axis, the new 72-kilometre (45-mile) section built by the Egyptian army is aimed at speeding up traffic along the existing waterway by reducing the waiting period, as well as boosting revenues. Mamish assured the new canal is safe and well-prepared to receive the crossing ships. He added that with the new Suez Canal project inaugurated in August 6, vessels traffic in the waterway will be the fastest all over the world. Preparations for the inaugural ceremony were in full swing in Ismailiya amid a widespread campaign to clean the city, an AFP correspondent reported.

Egypt has launched a tender to import hundreds of thousands of tonnes of petroleum products in the third quarter of 2014, an energy official said on Saturday, as the country tries to stave off a summer energy crisis. Egypt's government wants to avoid major power blackouts during the months of increased consumption in the summer, when outages are worsened by a dilapidated grid and a wasteful subsidies system. The tender comes in addition to supplies from Saudi Arabia, which will deliver energy products to Egypt in July and August as part of an aid package announced after the Egyptian army overthrew Egypt's first freely elected president, the Islamist Mohamed Mursi.

Fifteen tonnes of a material used to make explosives have been seized in a town straddling the Suez Canal, the Egyptian army said on Wednesday, one of the biggest such hauls since the start of a campaign against Islamist militants in the nearby Sinai. Five tonnes of the material were seized in a truck in Al Qantara East on the eastern bank of the canal, leading to a second seizure of 10 tonnes of the same material held in storage at an undisclosed location in Al Qantara West, on the opposite bank. In a short statement, the army said the truck was being driven by two men from the town of El-Arish, which borders the Palestinian Gaza Strip at the eastern edge of the Sinai Peninsula. The army gave no further details.

The Panama-flagged container ship 'Cosco Asia' has been targeted by terrorists attempting to block the vital canal system, but the attack was foiled by the Egyptian Army, reports Al Jazeera, citing a statement by the Head of the Suez Canal Authority. The statement did not specify what kind of attack it was, but shipping sources informed the Reuters news agency they heard the sound of two explosions as the ship passed through the waterway. Blocking the canal would have an immediate economic effect…