President Morsi attends naval exercises following a spate of criticism directed at former military commanders, reports Amirah Ibrahim President Mohamed Morsi joined Defence Minister Lieutenant General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi on Sunday at the navy command headquarters in Alexandria. The president later boarded a naval destroyer to watch Sea Victory 45, a naval exercise organised to mark Navy Day. "The president is attending to share a sense of pride with the troops and send a message to those who sacrificed their lives for the sake of Egypt," a navy source told Al-Ahram Weekly. The president was also attending in an attempt to head off criticism and in a show of solidarity with the military after sources within the Muslim Brotherhood launched a scathing attack on members of the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces (SCAF) who took over the country following Hosni Mubarak's ouster in February 2011. There were calls that both Hussein Tantawi and his deputy Sami Anan be tried for corruption and involvement in the deaths of protesters. In his first interview since he was "retired" by Morsi, Tantawi told the weekly Al-Osbou: "We sided with the people and, thank God, we fulfilled what we had pledged. I have endured a lot before, and I leave everything to the judgement of history." Dozens of naval units took part in the exercise, and the ships included missile boats, destroyers and frigates. Following the exercise Morsi delivered a long speech to the participants in which he expressed his full support of military commanders in service and those who have recently retired. "We are proud of our heroes of the past and those of present," Morsi said onboard the frigate Toshka. "Officers and soldiers have performed their duties as expected. During difficult days the Egyptian flag has been carried high thanks to their sacrifices." A day earlier Morsi defended Tantawi and Anan while watching another military exercise, this time involving troops from the Second Army. "I reject the insulting claims being made against our great commanders," he said. "Tantawi and his comrades did a great job protecting the revolution and helped secure the Egyptian nation during the transition period." "Egypt's security and development depend, as always, on the loyalty of the Armed Forces and their ability to defend the homeland." Navy Day is celebrated every year on 21 October, the day on which, in 1967, the Israeli destroyer Eilat sank 12 miles from Port Said after being hit by two surface-to-surface Styx missiles launched by Egyptian Komar class missile boats four months after Egypt's defeat in the 1967 war. Eilat had repeatedly entered Egypt's territorial waters before the first missile hit the ship just above the waterline at 17.32 hours. Two minutes later the second missile struck, causing casualties. An hour later a second Egyptian Komar class missile boat fired two more Styx missiles which hit the Eilat. It sank a few minutes later. "Sinking the Eilat was the beginning of a new stage of naval development," says Navy chief Admiral Osama Al-Guindi. "We adopted a verifying weapons sources policy. We currently have ships from Russia, China and the US. We work with friendly navies to develop our industrial capabilities and now build naval units ourselves, including monitoring boats for both the navy's border guards corps and the Interior Ministry's water guards unit." Al-Guindi added that the navy is heavily involved in non-military duties, guarding oil wells, power sources, the Suez Canal, and is in the forefront of the battle against weapons and drug smugglers and human trafficking.
