Greek and Egyptian service members waded through colored smoke onto a Cretan beach Friday as the multinational Medusa 15 exercise ended in front of tourists sunbathing near Chania.
The annual drills, led by Greece and Egypt, ran from Sept. 10–18 around Crete, the Myrtoan Sea and waters south of Karpathos. France, Italy and Cyprus took part. Serbia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Mozambique sent observers.
Friday’s Distinguished Visitors Day at Maleme featured a combined amphibious and airborne assault: free-fall jumps with participating nations’ flags, airborne infiltration, JTAC-directed air support, naval and anti-submarine operations, and helicopter fast-rope descents. Jets and helicopters flew overhead while Greek military police kept bathers back.
Egypt’s helicopter carrier ENS Gamal Abdel Nasser served as a floating command post. Forces used frigates, missile boats, submarines, landing craft, fighters and special-operations teams. This year’s scenarios stressed drones and counter-drone systems, including Greece’s Kentavros C-UAS and FPV unmanned aircraft, reflecting lessons from recent wars.
Medusa began in 2015 as a Greece-Egypt exercise and now rotates hosts. Officials said the aim is interoperability. Greek sources also pointed to participants’ ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea and to a Greece-Cyprus-Egypt meeting in El Alamein days earlier.
Watching from the Hellenic Navy frigate Psara were Gen. Dimitrios Houpis of Greece, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Fathy Ibrahim Khalifa of Egypt, Lt. Gen. Emmanouil Theodorou of Cyprus and French Rear Adm. Mackara Ouk.
