The October War While we celebrate the October War anniversary, many questions are raised every year concerning the Egyptian-Syrian coordination, the reasons and results of the decision aimed at developing the attack on October 14 and the famous loophole and fighting west of Suez Canal from October 17 till 22 till the actual ceasefire on October 28, after the failure of the Israeli troops to seize Suez City. In fact, the October victory allowed Egypt to take war from the military battles arena to the political one to realize the final goals of the war. As for the Egyptian-Syrian coordination, it was an unprecedented experiment given that coordination took place at the strategic political and military levels. The goal of that coordination was to force Israel to fight on two fronts at the same time, which meant that the development of fighting on a front would affect the other one. This happened during the comprehensive military confrontation on the fronts in Sinai and Golan on October 6-10, 1973. On October 6-7 the shock made by the Egyptian forces starting with the air strike, storming into the Suez Canal and the intense fighting alongside the Barlev Line pushed Israel to focus on the Sinai front. This enabled the Syrian troops to quickly access the Golan Heights and severely hit Israel. However, the results were different: on the Egyptian front, the Egyptian forces managed to establish bridgeheads east of the Suez Canal at a depth of 15-17 kilometers. On the Syrian front, despite the success of the Syrian forces to severely hit the Israeli forces, they did not manage to maintain the lines they reached in the Golan and were forced to withdraw behind October 5 lines under the pressure of the Israeli attack. As to developing attack on October 14 where the armored Egyptian reserves were pushed to east of the Suez Canal region, the goal was to ease pressure on Syria after the then Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said on October 12 the Israeli forces were heading for Damascus. As for the issue of the loophole and fighting west of the Suez Canal which started on October 17 and ended on October 28 despite the UNSC resolution for a ceasefire on October 22, we have to take into account the US airlift to Israel which began on October 13 and lasted to November 14 during which Israel was provided with the then state-of-the-art US arms and missiles and tanks which hit 24987 tons. In addition, we also have to review the file of Suez city battles on October 24 and the file of fighting west of the canal to know why Israel accepted to pull all forces back 30 kilometers east of the canal. Hence, the political stages of the October War began without which the final goals of the October War could not have been realized.
Dr. Adel Suleiman
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