WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.240 --> 00:00:03.680 Many people have heard of the Navy Seals, obviously in 2 00:00:03.720 --> 00:00:08.919 the Green Berets, but today we're talking about a different group, 3 00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:14.119 Egypt Sakha Forces, and this is a unit that got 4 00:00:14.119 --> 00:00:17.039 built the hard way through defeat, humiliation, in a total 5 00:00:17.079 --> 00:00:21.079 institutional gut check. That's usually how the best special operations 6 00:00:21.199 --> 00:00:24.239 unit get made, not from a firm nation in flesh 7 00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:26.440 with confidence, but from a nation that got its teeth 8 00:00:26.519 --> 00:00:31.960 kicked in Sakka means thunderbolt in Arabic, and the roots 9 00:00:31.960 --> 00:00:34.200 of this unit traced back to the aftermath of the 10 00:00:34.280 --> 00:00:39.039 nineteen sixty seven Six Day War. There is a short 11 00:00:39.159 --> 00:00:41.640 version if you don't know that war Egypt, Jordan and Syriah. 12 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:45.560 It got absolutely dismantled by Israel in six days. Egypt 13 00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:49.359 lost to Sinai Sayanai peninsula, lost most of its air 14 00:00:49.359 --> 00:00:51.920 force on the ground before it even got airborne, and 15 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:54.880 took a level of strategic embarrassment that doesn't just hurt, 16 00:00:55.640 --> 00:01:00.600 it forces dramatic change. And that's exactly what happened. Military 17 00:01:00.719 --> 00:01:02.560 leadership looked at what went wrong, and one of the 18 00:01:02.560 --> 00:01:06.239 glaring issues was a total lack of specialized units capable 19 00:01:06.280 --> 00:01:09.640 of one could have unconventional warfare, deep recon and rapid 20 00:01:09.680 --> 00:01:14.879 direct action behind enemy lines. Conventional forces, though, weren't enough, 21 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:20.000 especially against an enemy like Israel, so Egypt started building 22 00:01:20.040 --> 00:01:23.319 out dedicated special op capability in the Saka forces became 23 00:01:23.359 --> 00:01:27.079 the tip of that spear in nineteen seventy three October. 24 00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:29.519 The war rolled around six years later. This was a 25 00:01:29.519 --> 00:01:33.599 different Egyptian military. Saka units were used for deep infiltration, 26 00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:37.560 sabotage X operations and strikes against high value targets behind 27 00:01:37.640 --> 00:01:42.560 Israeli lines. Some of these operations involved helicopter insertions deep 28 00:01:42.599 --> 00:01:47.599 into contested territory to hit airfields, disrupt logistics, and create 29 00:01:47.680 --> 00:01:50.480 chaos in the enemy's rear areas, where while the main 30 00:01:50.560 --> 00:01:55.840 conventional force pushed across the Suez Now. Not every one 31 00:01:55.840 --> 00:01:58.480 of these operations went clean. This is the nature of 32 00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:01.439 early stage operations done. You're going to have friction, you're 33 00:02:01.480 --> 00:02:04.239 going to have losses. But the point is Egypt to 34 00:02:04.319 --> 00:02:07.959 learn the lesson. You cannot fight a technologically superior, highly 35 00:02:08.039 --> 00:02:13.000 mobile enemy with conventional infantry tactics alone. You need people 36 00:02:13.039 --> 00:02:17.159 who can operate independently behind the lines. And that's really 37 00:02:17.199 --> 00:02:21.159 the DNA of Sokka. It's a unique unit built specifically 38 00:02:21.199 --> 00:02:24.639 around the idea of operating and denied hostile, unsupported environments, 39 00:02:25.319 --> 00:02:27.919 and that doctrine didn't disappear up to nineteen seventy three. 40 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:32.680 After decades, saka's role expanded well beyond conventional deep strike 41 00:02:32.719 --> 00:02:36.639 operations into counter terrorism, hostage rescue, and internal security ops, 42 00:02:38.120 --> 00:02:42.599 particularly as Egypt started dealing with serious homegrown terrorism, especially 43 00:02:42.639 --> 00:02:46.719 in the Syinai Peninsula in the twenty tens, where groups 44 00:02:46.719 --> 00:02:49.639 tied to Isis. We're operating an active insurgency against the 45 00:02:49.639 --> 00:02:55.520 Egyptian state. What about selection or Egyptian special forces broadly 46 00:02:55.560 --> 00:02:59.719 speaking across Sokka and the broad Egyptian airborne Commando pipeline 47 00:02:59.719 --> 00:03:03.719 is built around extreme physical nutrition combined with psychological pressure testing. 48 00:03:04.759 --> 00:03:09.039 We're talking punishing endurance events and brutal heat. Because remember 49 00:03:09.039 --> 00:03:12.039 a huge amount of Egypt's operational environment is desert, the 50 00:03:12.199 --> 00:03:14.639 Cianai in the western desert, aline of living in border, 51 00:03:15.159 --> 00:03:18.159 so candidates need to be conditioned specifically for that environment, 52 00:03:18.199 --> 00:03:22.919 not generic fitness standards. Long rock marches, under load obstacle 53 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:25.400 courses designed to break you physically and mentally at the 54 00:03:25.400 --> 00:03:30.240 same time, close quarters combat evaluation, and sustained sleep deprivation 55 00:03:30.400 --> 00:03:33.240 phases where instructors are watching less for who's the strongest 56 00:03:33.280 --> 00:03:35.840 guy in the room and more for who keeps making 57 00:03:35.919 --> 00:03:41.599 sound decisions when they're exhausted, hungry, and mentally worn. That's 58 00:03:41.639 --> 00:03:45.400 the actual selection of criteria every serious special ops pipeline 59 00:03:45.400 --> 00:03:49.319 in the world. It's never really about raw physical dominance, 60 00:03:49.319 --> 00:03:51.800 about the decision about those who don't fall apart under 61 00:03:51.879 --> 00:03:56.400 compounding stress and SOAKA also trains heavily in airborne operations 62 00:03:56.439 --> 00:03:58.479 as a huge part of the original doctrine was built 63 00:03:58.479 --> 00:04:02.599 around rapid infiltration by air chute combined now with amphibious 64 00:04:02.680 --> 00:04:07.120 infiltration training since Egypt's got serious coastline exposure, and you 65 00:04:07.199 --> 00:04:09.080 start to see a unit that's built to be inserted 66 00:04:09.080 --> 00:04:11.879 by air, sea, or land, depending on what the mission requires. 67 00:04:13.319 --> 00:04:16.199 That kind of multi domain infiltration capability as a hallmark 68 00:04:16.240 --> 00:04:20.120 of a mature special ops force. Let's get into the 69 00:04:20.160 --> 00:04:23.480 canaterrorism piece, because this is where the Sakha has actually 70 00:04:23.480 --> 00:04:28.079 seen the most sustained real world operational tempo. After twenty eleven, 71 00:04:28.160 --> 00:04:30.959 during the instability following the Arab Spring and intensifying to 72 00:04:31.079 --> 00:04:34.199 the mid twenty tens the Cyanai Peninsula, it came home 73 00:04:34.240 --> 00:04:38.519 to an active insurgency primarily driven by you may remember 74 00:04:38.720 --> 00:04:45.240 Williott Cyanai, the local ISS affiliate. This wasn't some low 75 00:04:45.279 --> 00:04:49.319 intensity nuisance problem. This was a sustained campaign involving IEDs 76 00:04:49.439 --> 00:04:54.000 ambushes on Egyptian military checkpoints and attacks on civilian security targets. 77 00:04:54.839 --> 00:05:01.800 Sakoff Horses, alongside other elements of the Egyptian military, became 78 00:05:01.839 --> 00:05:05.720 heavily committed to counterinsurgency operations of North Cyani, operating in 79 00:05:05.720 --> 00:05:09.720 brutal terrain, extreme heat against an enemy that blended into 80 00:05:09.720 --> 00:05:13.839 the local population and used classic insurgent tactics hit and 81 00:05:13.920 --> 00:05:18.759 run engagements, buried explosives. This was a fundamentally different operational 82 00:05:18.800 --> 00:05:21.879 problem in the conventional deep strike missions of nineteen seventy three. 83 00:05:22.600 --> 00:05:26.720 Counterinsurgency requires a completely different skill set. It's slower, it's 84 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:30.759 more intelligence driven, requires operators who can build relationships with 85 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:35.800 local populations, gather human intelligence, and execute precision rates based 86 00:05:35.839 --> 00:05:39.759 on that intelligence. Units that can transition between high intensity 87 00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:43.879 conventional special ops and long term counterinsurgency without losing effectiveness 88 00:05:44.439 --> 00:05:47.759 are rare, and that transition is exactly what this group 89 00:05:47.759 --> 00:05:50.959 did from Egypt, and it has to make it over the 90 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:54.199 past decade plus. One thing that doesn't get talked about 91 00:05:54.360 --> 00:05:57.480 enough with units like this is a psychological toll sustained 92 00:05:57.600 --> 00:06:03.240 counterinsurgency deployment. Talking about a single high intensity mission, you're 93 00:06:03.279 --> 00:06:06.639 talking about operators bring doing repeated rotations into the same 94 00:06:06.759 --> 00:06:10.600 hostile terrain year after a year against an enemy that adapts, 95 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:15.519 that plants IEDs, that studies your unit's habits and exploits them. 96 00:06:16.680 --> 00:06:19.519 That kind of prolonged exposure to ambiguous threat where danger 97 00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:22.160 is in a single event but a constant, low grade presence. 98 00:06:22.680 --> 00:06:25.720 But this is a very specific kind of operational fatigue. 99 00:06:26.399 --> 00:06:29.600 It's not the acute adrenaline spike or single radio but 100 00:06:29.639 --> 00:06:31.959 it's a chronic high pervigil and sustain over years of 101 00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:37.639 deployment cycles that has real cognitive and physiological costs. What 102 00:06:37.800 --> 00:06:41.319 make SOAKA worth talking about is in flashy public operations 103 00:06:41.399 --> 00:06:44.920 or highly real because frankly, a lot of what this 104 00:06:45.079 --> 00:06:48.439 unit does doesn't get publicized. That's by design, that's true 105 00:06:48.439 --> 00:06:51.199 of most special ops. What makes it we're talking about 106 00:06:51.319 --> 00:06:53.920 is the institutional story behind it. A military that got 107 00:06:53.959 --> 00:06:56.800 humiliated in sixty seven, they took a hard look at 108 00:06:56.839 --> 00:06:59.879 its failures and built a unit. Specifically, it's designed to 109 00:07:00.079 --> 00:07:03.360 address that gap. Decades later, that same unit had to 110 00:07:03.399 --> 00:07:06.959 reinvent itself again to fight a completely different kind of 111 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:09.439 war against an insurgency that didn't exist when the unit 112 00:07:09.519 --> 00:07:14.279 was first created. That adaptably, more than any other single operation, 113 00:07:14.399 --> 00:07:16.360 is probably the best measure of how seriously you could 114 00:07:16.360 --> 00:07:19.720 take a special ops unit. Not how good their pr is, 115 00:07:19.759 --> 00:07:21.839 not how many action movies get made about them. It's 116 00:07:21.879 --> 00:07:24.560 whether they can evolve when the thread evolves, and by 117 00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:27.120 that measure, EGYPT'SAKA forces have are in a lot more 118 00:07:27.160 --> 00:07:29.839 respect than most people have ever given them.