Commander-in-Chief of Bahrain Defense Force (BDF) Field Marshal Sheikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa received in Manama on Wednesday the newly appointed Egyptian Non-resident Military Attaché accredited to Bahrain Colonel Mohammed Fakhri Al Sayed Al Abed (photo).

The BDF Commander-in-Chief welcomed him, wishing him every success in his new post, Bahrain News Agency (BNA) reported.

The meeting was attended by General Command Court Director Major General Hassan Mohammed Sa’ad and Military Cooperation Director Rear Admiral Mohammed Hashim Al Sada.

Elsewhere, Egypt has denied Arab media reports claiming that Cairo has military presence in Syria.

“These claims only exist in the imagination of those who promote them,” the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Egypt is committed to not intervening in other countries’ internal affairs, the Ministry’s statement said, adding that deploying any military personnel or equipment would have required public legal measures.

On November 24, Lebanese As-Safir newspaper quoted “well-informed Arab sources” as saying that Egypt had dispatched pilots to an airbase in Syria’s western city of Hama on November 12, adding that the contingent was joined by four senior Egyptian military figures upon arrival.

The paper added that two Egyptian Major Generals had also been operating at the Armed Forces Staff Headquarters in the Syrian capital, Damascus, since last month. They have been touring frontlines, including the so-called southern front in the city of Quneitra, the report said.

The daily also quoted one source “close to the Syria file” as saying that a large deployment of Egyptian troops will arrive in Syria in late January 2017 to take part in military operations “not limited to air support at Hama airbase”.

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi recently expressed support for the Syrian military, saying it was capable of restoring stability to Syria.

Major General Ali Mamlouk, the Head of Syria’s National Security Bureau, visited the Egyptian capital, Cairo, in October and held talks with senior Egyptian intelligence officials. The two sides reached an agreement on “coordinating political standpoints” and improving bilateral “cooperation in the combat against terrorism” during the talks, Syria’s official news agency SANA reported at the time.

A month earlier, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry had announced that Cairo and Riyadh did not have common attitudes vis-à-vis the ongoing crisis in Syria.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt have been at odds over regional politics including the warming of ties between Moscow and Cairo and Egypt’s refusal to send troops to Yemen and Syria.

Egypt is committed to not intervening in other countries' internal affairs, the ministry's Sunday statement said, adding that deploying any military personnel or equipment would have required public legal measures.