U.S. Air Power Strikes Iraq Targets Daily

[leftchick]

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,83349,00.html

Associated Press | December 20, 2005
WASHINGTON - The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps have flown thousands of missions in support of U.S. ground troops in Iraq this fall with little attention back home, including attacks by unmanned Predator aircraft armed with Hellfire missiles, military records show.

News reports and the public have focused mainly on ground action by the Army and Marines, but a variety of U.S. aircraft are striking targets in Iraq daily. They include frontline Air Force and Navy fighters as well as Marine Corps attack planes. American and allied refueling, transport and surveillance planes also are flying.

The airstrikes have been largely in areas of western Iraq and other places where the insurgency is strongest, such as Balad, Ramadi and in the vicinity of Baghdad, according to the U.S. military's Central Command, which is responsible for military operations in Iraq. For example, it said that on Iraq's election day, Dec. 15, an Air Force F-16 fighter fired a precision-guided munition at an access road used by insurgents near Baghdad.

The number of U.S. airstrikes increased in the weeks leading up to last Thursday's election, from a monthly average of about 35 last summer to more than 60 in September and 120 or more in October and November. The monthly number of air missions, including refueling and other support flights, grew from 1,111 in September to 1,492 in November, according to figures provided by Central Command Air Force's public affairs office.

[rodeodance]

1. I hope this AP story gets wide coverage.

[leftchick]

2. the only other place I have found this story is here...

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3D38A39E-D8B2-499D-9FA4-2C941EBB8332.htm

[oblivious]

3. Those munition may be precision-guided, but the intelligence isn't.

Here's an example of one of them going after al-qaeda's tird No. 3 man in Pakistan two weeks ago.

Drone said to have killed Al Qaeda's No. 3
SLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – In the dead of night, the US Predator aircraft swooped in over the hamlet of Haisori, locking in on an abandoned house five travelers had quietly entered just hours before, according to neighbors. Then, they say, the drone fired on the stone and mud dwelling for about eight minutes, reducing it to rubble.

Pakistani officials say the airstrike, which took place last Thursday in tribal region of North Waziristan, killed five people, including Al Qaeda's No. 3 man, Egyptian Abu Hamza Rabia.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1205/p04s02-wosc.html

U.S. missile parts at Pakistan al Qaeda target site
Sun Dec 4, 2005
AISORI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani tribesmen on Sunday displayed parts of a U.S.-marked missile they said hit a house and killed two boys, evidence at odds with the government which says an explosion there killed a top al Qaeda commander.

Whatever the cause of the blast, the death of Abu Hamza Rabia would be a coup for Pakistan and the United States which describe him as al Qaeda's chief of international operations.

But his body has not been found.

Sat amid the ruins of his mud and concrete-walled home in the restive North Waziristan tribal agency, Haji Mohammad Siddiq told Reuters his 17-year old son and an eight-year-old nephew were killed in a missile attack, but denied there were any militants present.

"I don't know anything about them -- there were no foreigners in my house," Siddiq said. "I have nothing to do with foreigners or al Qaeda.

"We were sleeping when I heard two explosions in my guest room. When I went there I saw my son, Abdul Wasit, and my eight-year-old nephew, Noor Aziz, were dead,"
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-12-04T160026Z_01_MOL457534_RTRUKOC_0_UK-SECURITY-PAKISTAN-QAEDA.xml

[leftchick]

4. Probably the most under reported story from Iraq....

<snip>

Not surprisingly, given their source, such reports glide over or underemphasize potentially damaging information like the fact that bombing runs of this sort are regularly conducted in heavily-inhabited areas of Iraq's cities and towns where the resistance may also be strongly embedded. Oblique statements like the following are the best you are likely to get from the military: "Coalition aircraft also supported Iraqi and coalition ground forces operations focused on creating a secure environment for upcoming December parliamentary elections."

As a result, aside from reportage by one of the rare western independent journalists left in Iraq or the many Arab journalists largely ignored in the U.S., the American air assault on Iraq remains devastatingly ill-covered by larger outlets here. This remains true, even as, militarily, air power begins to move center stage at a moment when large-scale withdrawals of American ground troops are clearly being considered by the Bush administration.

I have worked as an independent reporter in Baghdad for over eight months during the U.S. occupation of Iraq thus far and I can confirm that a day never passed in the capital city when the low rumblings of an Apache helicopter or the supersonic thundering roar of an F-16 fighter jet didn't cause me to look up for the source of the noise. Many a night I would be awakened by the low, whumping blades of U.S. helicopters scouring the rooftops of the capital city -- flying at almost building height to avoid rocket-propelled grenades from resistance fighters. I would oftentimes wonder where they were coming from, as well as where they were going.

It is impossible, really, to miss the overt signs of the ongoing air war in Iraq when you are there, which makes the lack of coverage all the more startling. At night, while standing on the roof of my hotel in Baghdad during the November 2004 assault on Fallujah, a city some 40-odd miles away, I could see on the horizon the distant flashes of U.S. bombs that were searing that embattled city.

http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-jamail171205.htm

[Hyernel]

5. Got to use the old bombs up....

...so that Bush Rangers and Pioneers can profit on munitions reorders.

Operation Blank Check for the Military Industrial Complex proceeds unabated.

[DemonFighterLives]

6. Thanks for the news

There is not much escaping from there.
Kicked and Recommended!
:dem: