Career
He was the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces until his retirement was announced by President Mohamed Morsi on 12 August 2012. He commanded a brigade from 1992. From 1990 to 1993 he was the Egyptian Defence Attaché to Morocco.
From 1996 to 1998 he reportedly commanded the 5th Air Defence Division.
More recently he served as the Commander of the Egyptian Air Defence Forces from 2001 to 2005. He served as Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.
On 2 October 2012, the Egyptian public prosecutor announced that Anan would be investigated for corruption, the first such investigation against a military figure. When the 2011 Egyptian Revolution began in January 2011, Anan was in Washington "for a week of meetings with senior American officers".
Cutting his visit short, he returned to Egypt on 28 January.
As the commander of an army of 468,000 troops, he was considered likely to play a crucial role in the political uncertainty surrounding the protests. On 1 February 2011, the United Kingdom"s Channel 4 News reported that the United States was pressing for Anan to play a role in coordinating interim arrangements for government in Egypt after Hosni Mubarak. As the protests built momentum into their second week, there was considerable speculation whether Enan, on one hand, was ""too close to Mubarak to stay," Gawdat Bahgat, a professor at National Defense University in Washington who has worked extensively with Egyptian officers attending the school," or, on the other, "a trusted partner.
Retired Army Lieutenant
General The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is the body of 18 senior military men, including Anan, to which the power to govern was handed by departing President Mubarak on 11 February 2011. Only Hussein Tantawi ranked ahead of Anan on the armed forces website and in the Council at that time, according to First Rate (at Lloyd's) Jazeera.
Also, the story said, the Muslim Brotherhood "has described as incorruptible and as one of its cleric put it: "He can be the future man of Egypt … I think he will be acceptable."" As the newspaper saw it, this gave the "Soviet-trained" general an unusual span of support in the post-Mubarak government". Anan formed the Arabism Egypt Party in 2014, which will run in the Egyptian 2015 parliamentary election.