Muhammad Abd Al-Halim Abu-Ghazala was Defense Minister of Egypt from 1981 to 1989. Abu Ghazala was seated next to Anwar Sadat when the president was assassinated.
Early life and education
He was born in Zuhur Al Omara Village, Dilingat, Behera governorate, in january 15th 1930. His family descended from "Awlad Aly" tribe. After completing his secondary education, he joined the Egyptian Royal Military Academy, then he received the battalion command diploma from Stalin Academy in the Soviet Union in 1949. He also graduated from Nasser Academy for higher military education. On the civilian studies side, he received a bachelor's degree from the faculty of commerce, Cairo University. Abu Ghazala received the diploma of honor from the National War College in the U.S., thus being the first non-American to receive such an award. Besides his native Arabic, Abu Ghazala was also fluent in fluent in English, French and Russian.
The project T is part of the tri-national program with Argentina, and Iraq to develop a two-stage solid and liquid propellant missile with a range of. This program was referred to in Argentina as the Condor 2, and in Iraq as the Badr 2000. The Project T missile is a Scud-B variant, whose payload was probably reduced in order to extend its range. Egyptian president Mubarak removed him from office due to claims that he was involved in a missile-parts illegal import scandal from the United States, by violating U.S. export laws. The USA did not allow exporting certain materials used for making missile heads to the Egyptian military. So the Egyptian intelligence under Abu Ghazala's commands managed to import those materials indirectly though Germany in a highly complicated undercover intelligence mission, until the FBI found out about the mission and issued arrest warrants for the involved Egyptian Intelligence officers and an involved Egyptian missile scientist.
2005 elections
In 2005, Abu Ghazala was briefly rumored to be a presidential candidate for the powerful but illegal Muslim Brotherhood. He finally did not run, and the Muslim Brotherhood did not field a candidate in the first contested Egyptian presidential elections. The Muslim Brotherhood offered him to run as their presidential candidate, but he refused due to their different ideological backgrounds. Field Marshal Abu Ghazaleh wrote his first book under the name “The cannons were launched at noon.. the Egyptian artillery through the Ramadan War”, in which he explained the role of the Egyptian artillery in the October War and revealed his views and his military doctrine towards Israel.
