CAIRO — In October 1973, Gen. Mohamed Okasha led a squadron of French Mirage fighter jets to bomb Israeli military targets in the Sinai Peninsula. In January 2011, 38 years later, he stood in Tahrir Square carrying a banner emblazoned with his motto, “The fighters of October '73 are supporting youth of Jan. 25.” In March 2013, he co-founded a political party, The Egyptian Will Party.
“The idea of establishing a political party started with five retired military officers, now we are 200 former military men who fought alongside each other for long years. And weeks later, we became a minority among hundreds of civilians who joined the party as officials or members,” Okasha told Al-Monitor at a conference in Cairo on Saturday, May 11. Beside him sat Gen. Samir Aziz Mikhail, his fellow pilot, who was described by military historians as “the best non-Russian to fly the Meg-21 fighter jet.”
