The Pentagon kicks off war games in Egypt on Saturday for the second year in a row, an unusual step signaling the Donald Trump administration’s support for President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi despite lingering human rights concerns.

US-led Operation Bright Star, meant to hone Cairo’s ability to fend off militant groups such as the Islamic State in the Sinai Desert, had been held on a year-on, year-off basis for more than 30 years, from 1980 until the 2011 Arab Spring. Holding the exercises with 200 American troops for a second straight year — just weeks after the State Department released $195 million in military aid frozen under former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — is widely seen as a strong signal that the US administration will continue the $1.3 billion military relationship.

The Egyptians, a former US official told Al-Monitor, “are now free to act as they wanted to all along.”

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has been leading the push for normalization, the former official said, in spite of the State Department’s concerns over the detention of two Americans, Egypt's close ties with North Korea, and the Sisi government’s crackdown on nongovernmental organizations.