Baghdad It was announced in Cairo today the death of the former Egyptian Minister of Defense, Field Marshal Muhammad Hussein Tantawi, at the age of 85.

Field Marshal Tantawi suffered a health crisis about 3 months ago.

Field Marshal Tantawi assumed the presidency of Egypt as head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces after the resignation of former President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak on the eleventh of February 2011.

He remained in power until the handing over of his position and taking the constitutional oath on July 1, 2012, and was referred to retirement by a presidential decree from Mohamed Morsi on August 12, 2012.

Muhammad Hussein Tantawi graduated from the Egyptian Military College in 1956, then the Command and Staff College, and participated in the 1967 war, the war of attrition and the October 1973 war.

Source: National Iraqi News Agency