Expanding into: LY059, LY060, LY061.

The USS government on Matrouh had successfully engaged and defeated Islamic militants across the sea in whats known as “Egypt Proper”. However the USS armed forces were not giving up their momentum against extremist elements and thus continued the push. A lot of the armed forces came from marine landings made up of a custom and salvage made “Marine Corps”, all highly trained in urban warfare against the extremists. This was to be needed as this push was meant to begin in the large city of Beni-Suef. The city was one of the last major strongholds of the Islamic extremist group and thus the push would need some ‘heavy lifting’ of the Marines. The initial push was recorded in the diary of Marine Specialist Mahmoud Al-Benyamina.

Mahmoud Al-Benyamina

Tuesday, 3pm, Outer Beni-Suef

It’s Tuesday and already this week has felt like months. We are on a slow crawl to Beni-Suef with our armour, stopping at every small village and interrogating the locals. Many ignored us while others showed their disdain as plain as day. I offered a man a date to break his fast and he spat on the ground in front of me. We all claim to be here with hearts and minds, but I have not seen any evidence to suggest that. My brothers-in-arms have beaten old men for being “sympathetic” to the militants, if he wasn’t then he was now. It won’t be long till we are in the city, I am not excited for what is to come. Already IEDs and mortars are commonplace, inshallah this push will not last long.

Friday, 11:46pm, FOB Hussayn

Astaghfirullah, we have been stuck in this hell hole of a ruined city for days, every mile we advance we get stuck for hours. We’ve lost over a hundred men in our battalion, all Marines like myself. I’ve spent all day going from house to house, kicking down doors and pointing guns at horrified women and children. This city is not the terrorist filled hotbed that we thought it was, for every extremist we find we find twenty innocent people. I’ve been unable to sleep since we entered the city, all I hear is artillery and a few seconds later I hear screams. All of us are on edge with the militants hiding in hospitals and schools, playing dead then detonating themselves with explosive belts and vests.

Wednesday 4:30am, Streets of Beni-Suef

Our morning started early today, we were awoken by our Captain instructing us that we were to begin the next assault to the old Presidential Palace. It’s been over a week since we begun what was meant to be a “Two Day Assault” against extremism. Our assault is meant to begin with armour pushing straight to the palace, we will support them with our half-tracks and infantry groups. The militants are beginning to become more and more complacent with the idea of dying on their Jihad. They no longer surrender, instead they carry grenades to detonate on capture, even hiding them on small children and women.

Sunday 1:20pm, The Presidential Palace

It took us days to win the assault at the palace, but here I am now sitting at a golden desk. The majority of the Islamic militants leadership had been arrested but many, many independent cells still plague the city. Ive been given control over a squad and we are going to clear a hospital that was used as a terrorist FOB.

The journals were found by another squad of Marines days later, Specialist Al-Benyamina had been killed and his squad missing, another casualty in the war against terror. Within the next few weeks the city of Beni-Suef was captured and declared to be under control of the United States of Sinai.