October 6 War hero Hosni Mubarak’s biography

Hosni Mubarak, the former president of Egypt, died on Tuesday. He was 91. His death was confirmed by his son on twitter today.

Mubarak had entered the intensive care unit after undergoing surgery two weeks ago.

Last October, he made a rare appearance in a video published on YouTube where he shared his memories of Egypt’s 1973 war against Israel, when he commanded Egypt’s air force. It was the first time he had spoken before a camera since years.

Mubarak said that youth must know the role the generation that witnessed the October War played to erase the agony of defeat and restore confidence in the Egyptian Armed Forces.

He had survived multiple assassination attempts. Mubarak became a president when Islamist radicals in the military shot and killed his predecessor, Anwar el-Sadat, as he sat reviewing a military parade.

Mohammed Hosni Mubarak was born on May 4, 1928, in the village of Kafr el-Museiliha in the Nile Delta governate of Minufiya, a fertile agricultural area.

Mubarak’s father was an official in the Ministry of Justice, and the son was admitted to the military academy. Mr. Mubarak received fighter-pilot training in the Soviet Union and in 1972 became deputy war minister as well as air force commander in chief.

Before becoming president, Mubarak was the commander of the Egyptian Air Force between 1972-1975.  In 14 October 1981, Mubarak was sworn in as the fourth president of Egypt, after the assassination of his predecessor Anwar Sadat by Islamists.

In Egypt’s surprise attack on Israeli forces in 1973, the air force under General Mubarak mounted strikes against targets in support of Egyptian ground forces crossing the Suez Canal to the Sinai Peninsula.

Mubarak was a war hero for many Egyptians, because he served as commander of the Egyptian Air Force during the October 6 War in 1973.

El-Sadat, in his 1978 book “In Search of Identity: An Autobiography,” commended General Mubarak “the complete and stunning success” of the opening airstrikes.

Mubarak rejected nepotism and shunned corruption. His early successes were substantial, especially in foreign policy. He helped to bring Egypt back into the Arab fold while also calling for peace between Arab nations and Israel. In the mid-1990s, he helped forge agreements with Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, hoping to foster a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

When he took office Egypt’s external debt was about $50 billion, compared with a gross domestic product of just $20 billion. Mr. Mubarak set about improving Egypt’s infrastructure and helped, initially, to reschedule debt and stabilize the economy. He was also a friend of Washington, which gave Egypt as much as $2 billion a year in military and economic aid. In 1991, he helped to organize the coalition of Arab armies that had agreed to join the United States in the Persian Gulf war to push Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.