Cross border (Israel/Egypt) raids during the War of Attrition (1967-1970)

[jetsetter]

Once the Six-Day War came to a close in June 1967 Israel found itself in possession of the former Egyptian territory of the Sinai. While major combat operations did cease the conflict was far from over. From 1967-1970 Egypt and Israel engaged in what Egypt described as the "War of Attrition". It consisted of cross border raids by commando teams, artillery duels, and eventually large scale air operations. The commando raids, especially those performed by Israel, were quite daring and go down in history as some of the most impressive operations in history. Here are a few excerpts from author Kenneth Pollacks' Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991.

Consequently, Israel began to conduct commando operations deep into Egypt to try to persuade Cairo to ease its shelling. The first of these was a raid against the Naj Hammadi Dam in Upper Egypt. IN addition to damaging the dam, the Israelis destroyed the two Nile River bridges there and blew up a power transformer on the high voltage line between Cairo and the Aswan Dam.

Page 92, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991

In April, Egypt attempted to escalate the conflict further by conducting its own raids across the canal. Egyptian commando teams began infiltrating across the Suez at night at points distant from the Bar-Lev forts. They would then ambush Israeli patrols, attack supply convoys, and harass the forts themselves.

Page 92, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991

The Israelis responded by conducting commando raids of their own, usually much deeper in Egypt and that frequently did more significant damage than the Egyptian operations. For example, on the night of 19-20 July, Israel commandos landed on Green Island in the northern Gulf of Suez and destroyed an Egyptian radar located there. Months later, on the night of 25-26 December, Israeli commandos landed at R'as al-Gharib, overpowered the Egyptian garrison and dismantled and took back them one of the USSR's newest P-12 (Bar Lock) air defense radars that had recently been sold to Egypt. In another famous episode, on the night of 8 September, Israeli frogmen sank the only two Egyptian missile boats in the northern Gulf of Suez. The next day, Egypt's constant nemesis, Bren Adan, landed on the Egyptian coast of the Gulf of Suez with a company-sized force dressed and equipped entirely in Egyptian style, complete with Soviet Tanks and APCs captured during the Six Day War. Adan's force then drove forty-five kilometers along the Egyptian coast, destroying surface-to-air missile (SAM) and radar sites, killing Egyptian troops, and even capturing one of five new Soviet T-62 tanks in Egypt for trials and evaluation. Ten hours later, the Israelis returned to the Sinai with their booty.

Page 92-93, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991

In addition to the commando raids the Israelis initiated deep penetration raids that would eventually consist of 3,300 sorties and 8,000 tons of munitions dropped. The Egyptian Air Force performed so poorly that Nasser handed over the defense of Egyptian airspace to the USSR. The coming of the USSR brought modern SAM systems manned by Soviets and Soviet piloted MiGs. This would eventually lead to what was essentially an air war between the Israelis and the Soviets. Within a week a ceasefire was brokered between the two opposed powers.

[Reichswehr]

Very interesting. The Israelis did some very gutsy operations. I knew they did some cross border operations, but I didn't know the scale and how far they penetrated into the Egyptian "mainland".

Also I heard Israel had teams on the ground in Western Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War looking for Scud launching sites. Is there any truth in that story? It would not surprise me.

Jetsetter, I am going to order this book.

Cheers.

[Camera]

The Attrition War was initiated by Nasser and the IDF fought in fact on 3 fronts, Egypt, Syria + Jordan from which the PLO operated. During this war, the IDF made many spectacular raids.

Among them:

- The armor raid code named Operation Raviv caused Nasser an heart attack when he learned about it. It also made him revoking the Egyptian COS and other high ranking generals. A Russian general was also killed in this raid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Raviv

- The Green Island Raid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bulmus_6

- The Shadwan Island Raid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rhodes

There were other operations in Egypt and similar raids were carried out in Syria and to a lesser extent in Jordan.

But the main effort during the War of Attrition was provided by the IAF's bombings in Egypt. As a result, Nasser asked Brejnev to deploy Russian AD in Egypt. Brejnev sent to Egypt a Russian Air Defense division which included SAM batteries and Mig-21 Squadrons.

Over 100 Egyptian planes were downed by the IAF in dogfights during the Attrition War.
In the last days of the war, Russian pilots engaged in dogfights Israeli Mirages 3 and F-4. Five Russian pilots were downed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rimon_20

One month after the end of the war, Nasser - who was a very emotive leader - died.

[EITAN88]

The War of Attrition is probably the least well known of all of Israel's conflicts (if not one of the least well known) yet not only is it a very interesting chapter in Israel's history but also in the history of the Cold War in general.