The Soviet Union has shipped six supersonic MIG-23 fighter planes of the latest model to Egypt according to a report here attributed to Pentagon intelligence sources, which said the aircraft were delivered at Alexandria last week aboard a Soviet freighter. They were described as the first significant new weapons to reach Egypt from the USSR since last April.
While the Pentagon declined to discuss the report, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned that it stemmed from sources that are well informed and reliable. The sources doubted that the MIG-23 shipments indicated a major increase in Soviet arms supplies to Egypt. But they qualified their doubt by observing that they did not have sufficient information to express it as a fact. The MIG-28 is purportedly one of the highest flying, fastest combat aircraft in the world.
The sources said that Egyptian pilots selected to fly the highly sophisticated MIG-23s would go to the Soviet Union for training because it would be impolitic for Russians to conduct the training in Egypt at the present time when the U.S. is involved in trying to promote further negotiations between Egypt and Israel. The report on the MIG-23s seemed to conform with other published reports that Soviet arms shipments to Egypt were proceeding at a high rate. (By Joseph Polakoff)
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