Situation Report from the Sinai

Szöveg: Maj. Viktor Kelemen | 2014. december 5. 9:00

“Nobody said it would be easy” – this sentence refers to the pre-deployment training in Hungary, and these days you can often hear it in the area of operations of the Hungarian contingent of the Multinational Force and Observes (MFO HUNCON). The area of operations of the contingent has changed a lot in the recent period.

Already before the “Arab Spring" in 2011, emerging instability was there to be felt, caused mainly by the local Bedouin tribes’ dissatisfaction and the spread of smuggling. After the overthrow of the Mubarak regime, local residents chased most of the security forces away from the region, creating a security vacuum on the peninsula. The circumstances drew to the area the Islamic extremists and terrorists arriving from other parts of the world, and with them, large amounts of illegal military equipment flowed into the peninsula. Since then, the terrorist organizations, the closeness of the Gaza Strip, ongoing smuggling and the deprived people’s fury have been posing direct and indirect threats to MFO in the area of operations, which are not alleviated by the operations of Egyptian security forces.

The MFO HUNCON, as well as the staff directing its operations in Hungary and the organizations responsible for training are aware of the present situation, and have reacted to the emerging threats first by changing the structure of training and introducing new topics. The Ministry of Defence has raised the security status of the mission, sending a clear signal to all relevant police and military organs and also to laymen, to the effect that the security environment of the MFO HUNCON has substantially changed. Although the risk of direct attack is not high, the threat level has increased as a result of fighting in the nearby region which claims thousands of lives.

In consequence of the above, the work in progress on security fortifications and the acquisition of military equipment have speeded up in MFO, and there are more readiness drills. MFO does its best in the interest of security, just like the Hungarian contingent. Owing to the emerging threats in the security environment, MFO is struggling to execute the tasks of overseeing the terms of the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. At the same time, the Hungarian contingent is burdened with the additional duties of almost 24/7 standby service. In spite of the current difficulties and extra tasks, the 26 soldiers and policemen of the contingent led by Lt.-Col. Géza Ócsai perform their duties professionally even under these though circumstances.

The in-theatre training of the Hungarian contingent started in recent weeks with support from Hungary as well, in the form of equipment transported to the area of operations and the arrival of a team of mentors for the training. Besides preparing a security assessment in the area of operations, the contingent developed individual, collective and base defence procedures and had combat life saver (CLS), convoy, C-IED and marksmanship training.