Egypt deploys IRIS-T SLs to static positions

A still from the EADF anniversary video shows a TRML-4D radar deployed with the Iconic Tower in New Cairo visible in the background. (Egyptian Ministry of Defence)

The Egyptian Air Defence Force (EADF) is using at least two of its latest surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems to defend the new government area west of Cairo, satellite imagery has confirmed.

One position for the IRIS-T SLM system was shown in a video that the Egyptian Ministry of Defence released on 30 June to mark the anniversary of the EADF and was easy to locate as the Iconic Tower in the New Administrative Capital, east of New Cairo, was visible in the background of a shot of its Hensoldt TRML-4D radar on a concrete ramp. That put the position just to the west of the new Strategic Command Headquarters, a massive complex known as the Octagon.

Satellite imagery shows the position has two concrete structures that were built in the 1990s. These serve both as bunkers and ramps for elevating radars. A Pechora-2M SAM system was deployed there in 2023 but had been replaced by 8 February 2026 by a system under camouflage nets that the video confirmed is an IRIS-T SLM. It was still there in an Airbus satellite image from 31 May.

This position is just to the south of a relatively new base that was also seen in the EADF anniversary video. An IRIS-T SLM transport erector launcher (TEL) was displayed at the base alongside two High-Powered Electromagnetic (HPEM) weapons, an anti-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system that is also made by the German company Diehl Defence. The Airbus satellite image from 31 May shows the same line-up at the base but with the TEL and HPEMs in travel configuration.