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Paul Merrell

US F-35 Fighter Jet Totaled in Crash Just One Day After Combat Debut - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...250176

war & peace F-35 crash boondoggles

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Oct 18 - No Cached
  • BEAUFORT, SOUTH CAROLINA — According to several reports citing U.S. military sources, the Lockheed Martin-manufactured F-35 jet – the most expensive U.S. fighter jet ever and the most expensive weapon system in the world – crashed spectacularly on Friday, just one day after its first-ever successful airstrike, resulting in the “total loss” of the aircraft. The crashed plane, each of which costs U.S. taxpayers more than $100 million, was a U.S. Marine Corps F-35B and had taken off from a training squadron at the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort, South Carolina. The pilot safely ejected from the plane prior to the crash and there were no civilian injuries. The crash is the second “Class A mishap” – a military term for an incident resulting in at least $2 million in damages, the fatality or permanent total disability of the crew, or the total loss of the aircraft – to have occurred with an F-35 jet and marked the first time that a pilot ejected from the aircraft. However, the jets have also been the subject of other less serious incidents including other accidents and fires, such as when an F-35B burst into flames on a runway in 2016.
  • The military has yet to say what caused the crash, give any details about the pilot, or recount what occurred immediately prior to the crash. Despite the lack of details, the incident has led some to worry that the crash may indicate a wider, systemic problem with the aircraft, which could lead to the potential grounding of the entire F-35 fleet.
  • Notably, the incident comes after the U.S. military used the plane for the first time in a U.S. airstrike, which was conducted in Afghanistan last Thursday against a “fixed Taliban target.”
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  • Yet, the recent crash of the F-35 jet has brought renewed scrutiny to the program, which has long been controversial not only for its high cost but for long-standing concerns about the jet’s effectiveness in combat. Indeed, the F-35 jet program has been called one of the most egregious cases of government waste in regards to defense spending, ever. Furthermore, despite having been on the workbench for decades (its development began in 1992), the U.S.’ F-35 fleet is still not ready, though some F-35s were deployed abroad in 2015. However, the plane had never been used by the U.S. military for a combat mission until last Thursday. Worse still, the Pentagon has admitted that the jets won’t have a chance in a real combat situation and a recent test run saw the jets outperformed by a 40-year-old F-16. Despite the clear failure of the program, the U.S. government has continued to pour money into the jet’s development, making it the most expensive weapons system in U.S. history. In total, the program is on track to cost U.S. taxpayers over $1 trillion. Despite the setbacks of the F-35, the U.S. has continued to not only pour more money into the F-35 program itself but to award Lockheed Martin massive contracts in apparent ignorance of the terrible precedent set by the controversial fighter jet program. For instance, in August, the U.S. government awarded Lockheed Martin over $3 billion in new contracts in just two days after concerns were raised regarding missile system advances made by Russia and China.
Paul Merrell

Running for Cover: A Sham Air Force Summit Can't Fix the Close Air Support Gap Created ... - 0 views

www.pogo.org/...eated-by-Dumping-the-A-10.html

war & peace DoD-procurement F35 A10 scandal

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • “I can’t wait to be relieved of the burdens of close air support,” Major General James Post, the vice commander of Air Combat Command (ACC), allegedly told a collection of officers at a training session in August 2014. As with his now notorious warning that service members would be committing treason if they communicated with Congress about the successes of the A-10, Major General Post seems to speak for the id of Air Force headquarters’ true hostility towards the close air support (CAS) mission. Air Force four-stars are working hard to deny this hostility to the public and Congress, but their abhorrence of the mission has been demonstrated through 70 years of Air Force headquarters’ budget decisions and combat actions that have consistently short-changed close air support. For the third year in a row (many have already forgotten the attempt to retire 102 jets in the Air Force’s FY 2013 proposal), the Air Force has proposed retiring some or all of the A-10s, ostensibly to save money in order to pay for “modernization.” After failing to convince Congress to implement their plan last year (except for a last minute partial capitulation by retiring Senate and House Armed Services Committee chairmen Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) and Representative Buck McKeon (R-CA)) and encountering uncompromising pushback this year, Air Force headquarters has renewed its campaign with more dirty tricks.
  • First, Air Force headquarters tried to fight back against congressional skepticism by releasing cherry-picked data purporting to show that the A-10 kills more friendlies and civilians than any other U.S. Air Force plane, even though it actually has one of the lowest fratricide and civilian casualty rates. With those cooked statistics debunked and rejected by Senate Armed Services Chairman Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Air Force headquarters hastily assembled a joint CAS “Summit” to try to justify dumping the A-10. Notes and documents from the Summit meetings, now widely available throughout the Air Force and shared with the Project On Government Oversight’s Center for Defense Information (CDI), reveal that the recommendations of the Summit working groups were altered by senior Air Force leaders to quash any joint service or congressional concerns about the coming gaps in CAS capabilities. Air Force headquarters needed this whitewash to pursue, yet again, its anti-A-10 crusade without congressional or internal-Pentagon opposition.
  • The current A-10 divestment campaign, led by Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh, is only one in a long chain of Air Force headquarters’ attempts by bomber-minded Air Force generals to get rid of the A-10 and the CAS mission. The efforts goes as far back as when the A-10 concept was being designed in the Pentagon, following the unfortunate, bloody lessons learned from the Vietnam War. For example, there was a failed attempt in late-1980s to kill off the A-10 by proposing to replace it with a supposedly CAS-capable version of the F-16 (the A-16). Air Force headquarters tried to keep the A-10s out of the first Gulf War in 1990, except for contingencies. A token number was eventually brought in at the insistence of the theater commander, and the A-10 so vastly outperformed the A-16s that the entire A-16 effort was dismantled. As a reward for these A-10 combat successes, Air Force headquarters tried to starve the program by refusing to give the A-10 any funds for major modifications or programmed depot maintenance during the 1990s. After additional combat successes in the Iraq War, the Air Force then attempted to unload the A-10 fleet in 2004.
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  • To ground troops and the pilots who perform the mission, the A-10 and the CAS mission are essential and crucial components of American airpower. The A-10 saves so many troop lives because it is the only platform with the unique capabilities necessary for effective CAS: highly maneuverable at low speeds, unmatched survivability under ground fire, a longer loiter time, able to fly more sorties per day that last longer, and more lethal cannon passes than any other fighter. These capabilities make the A-10 particularly superior in getting in close enough to support our troops fighting in narrow valleys, under bad weather, toe-to-toe with close-in enemies, and/or facing fast-moving targets. For these reasons, Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno has called the A-10 “the best close air support aircraft.” Other Air Force platforms can perform parts of the mission, though not as well; and none can do all of it. Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) echoed the troops’ combat experience in a recent Senate Armed Services committee hearing: “It's ugly, it's loud, but when it comes in…it just makes a difference.”
  • In 2014, Congress was well on the way to roundly rejecting the Air Force headquarters’ efforts to retire the entire fleet of 350 A-10s. It was a strong, bipartisan demonstration of support for the CAS platform in all four of Congress’s annual defense bills. But in the final days of the 113th Congress, a “compromise” heavily pushed by the Air Force was tucked into the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2015. The “compromise” allowed the Air Force to move A-10s into virtually retired “backup status” as long as the Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) office in DoD certified that the measure was the only option available to protect readiness. CAPE, now led by former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management and Comptroller Jamie Morin, duly issued that assessment—though in classified form, thus making it unavailable to the public. In one of his final acts as Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel then approved moving 18 A-10s to backup status.
  • The Air Force intends to replace the A-10 with the F-35. But despite spending nearly $100 billion and 14 years in development, the plane is still a minimum of six years away from being certified ready for any real—but still extremely limited—form of CAS combat. The A-10, on the other hand, is continuing to perform daily with striking effectiveness in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria—at the insistence of the CENTCOM commander and despite previous false claims from the Air Force that A-10s can’t be sent to Syria. A-10s have also recently been sent to Europe to be available for contingencies in Ukraine—at the insistence of the EUCOM Commander. These demands from active theaters are embarrassing and compelling counterarguments to the Air Force’s plea that the Warthog is no longer relevant or capable and needs to be unloaded to help pay for the new, expensive, more high-tech planes that Air Force headquarters vastly prefers even though the planes are underperforming.
  • So far, Congress has not been any more sympathetic to this year’s continuation of General Welsh’s campaign to retire the A-10. Chairman McCain rejected the Air Force’s contention that the F-35 was ready enough to be a real replacement for the A-10 and vowed to reverse the A-10 retirement process already underway. Senator Ayotte led a letter to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter with Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), and Richard Burr (R-NC) rebuking Hagel’s decision to place 18 A-10s in backup inventory. Specifically, the Senators called the decision a “back-door” divestment approved by a “disappointing rubber stamp” that guts “the readiness of our nation’s best close air support aircraft.” In the House, Representative Martha McSally (R-AZ) wrote to Secretary Carter stating that she knew from her own experience as a former A-10 pilot and 354th Fighter Squadron commander that the A-10 is uniquely capable for combat search and rescue missions, in addition to CAS, and that the retirement of the A-10 through a classified assessment violated the intent of Congress’s compromise with the Air Force:
  • Some in the press have been similarly skeptical of the Air Force’s intentions, saying that the plan “doesn’t add up,” and more colorfully, calling it “total bullshit and both the American taxpayer and those who bravely fight our wars on the ground should be furious.” Those reports similarly cite the Air Force’s longstanding antagonism to the CAS mission as the chief motive for the A-10’s retirement.
  • By announcing that pilots who spoke to Congress about the A-10 were “committing treason,” ACC Vice Commander Major General James Post sparked an Inspector General investigation and calls for his resignation from POGO and other whistleblower and taxpayer groups. That public relations debacle made it clear that the Air Force needed a new campaign strategy to support its faltering A-10 divestment campaign. On the orders of Air Force Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh, General Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle—the head of Air Combat Command—promptly announced a joint CAS Summit, allegedly to determine the future of CAS. It was not the first CAS Summit to be held (the most recent previous Summit was held in 2009), but it was the first to receive so much fanfare. As advertised, the purpose of the Summit was to determine and then mitigate any upcoming risks and gaps in CAS mission capabilities. But notes, documents, and annotated briefing slides reviewed by CDI reveal that what the Air Force publicly released from the Summit is nothing more than a white-washed assessment of the true and substantial operational risks of retiring the A-10.
  • Just prior to the Summit, a working group of approximately 40 people, including CAS-experienced Air Force service members, met for three days at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base to identify potential risks and shortfalls in CAS capabilities. But Air Force headquarters gave them two highly restrictive ground rules: first, assume the A-10s are completely divested, with no partial divestments to be considered; and second, assume the F-35 is fully CAS capable by 2021 (an ambitious assumption at best). The working groups included A-10 pilots, F-16 pilots, and Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs), all with combat-based knowledge of the CAS platforms and their shortfalls and risks. They summarized their findings with slides stating that the divestment would “cause significant CAS capability and capacity gaps for 10 to 12 years,” create training shortfalls, increase costs per flying hour, and sideline over 200 CAS-experienced pilots due to lack of cockpits for them. Additionally, they found that after the retirement of the A-10 there would be “very limited” CAS capability at low altitudes and in poor weather, “very limited” armor killing capability, and “very limited” ability to operate in the GPS-denied environment that most experts expect when fighting technically competent enemies with jamming technology, an environment that deprives the non-A-10 platforms of their most important CAS-guided munition. They also concluded that even the best mitigation plans they were recommending would not be sufficient to overcome these problems and that significant life-threatening shortfalls would remain.
  • General Carlisle was briefed at Davis-Monthan on these incurable risks and gaps that A-10 divestment would cause. Workshop attendees noted that he understood gaps in capability created by retiring the A-10 could not be solved with the options currently in place. General Carlisle was also briefed on the results of the second task to develop a list of requirements and capabilities for a new A-X CAS aircraft that could succeed the A-10. “These requirements look a lot like the A-10, what are we doing here?” he asked. The slides describing the new A-X requirements disappeared from subsequent Pentagon Summit presentations and were never mentioned in any of the press releases describing the summit.
  • At the four-day Pentagon Summit the next week, the Commander of the 355th Fighter Wing, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Col. James P. Meger, briefed lower level joint representatives from the Army and the Marine Corps about the risks identified by the group at Davis-Monthan. Included in the briefing was the prediction that divestment of the A-10 would result in “significant capability and capacity gaps for the next ten to twelve years” that would require maintaining legacy aircraft until the F-35A was fully operational. After the presentation, an Army civilian representative became concerned. The slides, he told Col. Meger, suggested that the operational dangers of divestment of the A-10 were much greater than had been previously portrayed by the Air Force. Col. Meger attempted to reassure the civilian that the mitigation plan would eliminate the risks. Following the briefing, Col. Meger met with Lt. Gen. Tod D. Wolters, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations for Air Force Headquarters. Notably, the Summit Slide presentation for general officers the next day stripped away any mention of A-10 divestment creating significant capability gaps. Any mention of the need to maintain legacy aircraft, including the A-10, until the F-35A reached full operating capability (FOC) was also removed from the presentation.
  • The next day, Col. Meger delivered the new, sanitized presentation to the Air Force Chief of Staff. There was only muted mention of the risks presented by divestment. There was no mention of the 10- to 12-year estimated capability gap, nor was there any mention whatsoever of the need to maintain legacy aircraft—such as the A-10 or less capable alternatives like the F-16 or F-15E—until the F-35A reached FOC. Other important areas of concern to working group members, but impossible to adequately address within the three days at Davis-Monthan, were the additional costs to convert squadrons from the A-10 to another platform, inevitable training shortfalls that would be created, and how the deployment tempos of ongoing operations would further exacerbate near-term gaps in CAS capability. To our knowledge, none of these concerns surfaced during any part of the Pentagon summit.
  • Inevitably, the Air Force generals leading the ongoing CAS Summit media blitz will point congressional Armed Services and Appropriations committees to the whitewashed results of their sham summit. When they do, Senators and Representatives who care about the lives of American troops in combat need to ask the generals the following questions: Why wasn’t this summit held before the Air Force decided to get rid of A-10s? Why doesn’t the Air Force’s joint CAS summit include any statement of needs from soldiers or Marines who have actually required close air support in combat? What is the Air Force’s contingency plan for minimizing casualties among our troops in combat in the years after 2019, if the F-35 is several years late in achieving its full CAS capabilities? When and how does the Air Force propose to test whether the F-35 can deliver close support at least as combat-effective as the A-10’s present capability? How can that test take place without A-10s? Congress cannot and should not endorse Air Force leadership’s Summit by divesting the A-10s. Instead, the Senate and House Armed Services Committees need to hold hearings that consider the real and looming problems of inadequate close support, the very problems that Air Force headquarters prevented their Summit from addressing. These hearings need to include a close analysis of CAPE’s assessment and whether the decision to classify its report was necessary and appropriate. Most importantly, those hearings must include combat-experienced receivers and providers of close support who have seen the best and worst of that support, not witnesses cherry-picked by Air Force leadership—and the witnesses invited must be free to tell it the way they saw it.
  • If Congress is persuaded by the significant CAS capability risks and gaps originally identified by the Summit’s working groups, they should write and enforce legislation to constrain the Air Force from further eroding the nation’s close air support forces. Finally, if Congress believes that officers have purposely misled them about the true nature of these risks, or attempted to constrain service members’ communications with Congress about those risks, they should hold the officers accountable and remove them from positions of leadership. Congress owes nothing less to the troops they send to fight our wars.
  • Paul Merrell on 29 Mar 15
     
     Though not touched on in the article, the real problem is that the A10 has no proponents at the higher ranks of the Air Force because it is already bought and paid for; there's nothing in the A10 for the big Air Force aircraft manufacturing defense contractors. The F35, on the other hand is, is a defense contractor wet dream. It's all pie in the sky and big contracts just to get the first one in the air, let alone outfit it with the gear and programming needed to use it to inflict harm. It's been one cost-overrun after another and delay after delay. It's a national disgrace that has grown to become the most expensive military purchase in history. And it will never match the A10 for the close air support role. It's minimum airspeed is too high and its close-in maneuverability will be horrible. The generals, of course, don't want to poison the well for their post-military careers working for the defense contractors by putting a halt to the boondobble. Their answer: eliminate the close air support mission for at least 10-12 years and then attempt it with the F35.   As a former ground troop, that's grounds for the Air Force generals' court-martial and dishonorable discharge. I would not be alive today were it not for close air support. And there are tens of thousands of veterans who can say that in all truth. The A10 wasn't available back in my day, but by all reports its the best close air support weapons platform ever developed. It's a tank killer and is heavily armored, with redundant systems for pilot and aircraft survivability. The A10 is literally built around a 30 mm rotary cannon that fires at 3,900 rounds per minute. It also carries air to ground rockets and is the only close air support aircraft still in the U.S. arsenal. Fortunately, John McCain "get it" on the close air support mission and has managed to mostly protect the A10 from the generals. If you want to learn  more about the F35 scandal, try this Wikipedia article section; although it's enoug
Paul Merrell

M of A - Russia "Violated" Turkish Airspace Because Turkey "Moved" Its Border - 0 views

www.moonofalabama.org/...e-turkey-moved-its-border.html

war & peace Syria Turkey Russia fighters border

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Russian planes in Syria "violated Turkish air space" the news agency currently tell us. But an earlier report shows that this claim may well be wrong and that the U.S. pushes Turkey to release such propaganda. Reuters (Mon Oct 5, 2015 7:54am BST): Turkey says Russian warplane violated its airspace A Russian warplane violated Turkish airspace near the Syrian border on Saturday, prompting the Air Force to scramble two F-16 jets to intercept it, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday. The Foreign Ministry summoned Moscow's ambassador to protest the violation, according to an e-mailed statement. Turkey urged Russia to avoid repeating such a violation, or it would be held "responsible for any undesired incident that may occur." AFP (10:20am · 5 Oct 2015): Turkey 'intercepts' Russian jet violating its air space Turkey said on Monday its F-16 jets had at the weekend intercepted a Russian fighter plane which violated Turkish air space near the Syrian border, forcing the aircraft to turn back. ... Turkey said on Monday its F-16 jets had at the weekend intercepted a Russian fighter plane which violated Turkish air space near the Syrian border, forcing the aircraft to turn back.
  • Here now what McClatchy reported on these air space violations in a longer piece several hours before Reuters and AFP reported the Turkish claim: ISTANBUL - A Russian warplane on a bombing run in Syria flew within five miles of the Turkish border and may have crossed into Turkey’s air space, Turkish and U.S. officials said Sunday. ... A Turkish security official said Turkish radar locked onto the Russian aircraft as it was bombing early Friday in al Yamdiyyah, a Syrian village directly on the Turkish border. He said Turkish fighter jets would have attacked had it crossed into Turkish airspace. But a U.S. military official suggested the incident had come close to sparking an armed confrontation. Reading from a report, he said the Russian aircraft had violated Turkish air space by five miles and that Turkish jets had scrambled, but that the Russian aircraft had returned to Syrian airspace before they could respond. The Turkish security official said he could not confirm that account.
  • So it is the U.S., not Turkey, which was first pushing the claims of air space violation and of scrambling fighters. The Turkish source would not confirm that. But how could it be a real air space violation when Russian planes "flew within five miles of the Turkish border and may have crossed into Turkey’s air space". The Russian planes were flying in Syrian airspace. They "may have crossed" is like saying that the earth "may be flat". Well maybe it is, right? Fact is the Russians fly ery near to the border and bomb position of some anti-Syrian fighters Turkey supports. They have good reasons to do so: The town, in a mountainous region of northern Latakia province, has been a prime route for smuggling people and goods between Turkey and Syria and reportedly has functioned as a key entry for weapons shipped to Syrian rebels by the U.S.-led Friends of Syria group of Western and Middle Eastern countries.
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  • One Russian plane may even indeed have slightly crossed the border while maneuvering. But the real reason why the U.S. military official and Turkey claim the above "violations" is because Turkey unilaterally "moved" the Turkish-Syrian border five miles south: Turkey has maintained a buffer zone five miles inside Syria since June 2012, when a Syrian air defense missile shot down a Turkish fighter plane that had strayed into Syrian airspace. Under revised rules of engagement put in effect then, the Turkish air force would evaluate any target coming within five miles of the Turkish border as an enemy and act accordingly. If Syrian rules of engagement would "move" its northern border up to the Black Sea would any plane in eastern Turkey be in violation of Syrian air space? No one would accept such nonsense and that is why no one should accept the U.S.-Turkish bullshit here. Russian planes should not respect the "new" Turkish defined border but only the legitimate one.
  • It would also be no good reason to start a NATO-Russia war just because such a plane might at times slightly intrude on the Turkish side due to an emergency or other accidental circumstances. Do we have to mention that the U.S., France, Britain and Jordan regularly violate Syrian airspace for their pretended ISIS bombing? That Turkey is bombing the PKK in north Iraq without the permission of the Iraqi government? What about Israels regular air space violations over Lebanon? But what is this all really about? Germany, the Netherlands and the U.S. stationed some Patriot air defense systems in Turkey to defend Turkey and its Islamist storm troops in north-Syria. These systems were announced to leave or have already left. Are these claims about air-space violation now an attempt to get these systems back into Turkey? For what real purpose?
Paul Merrell

Leaked F-35 Report Confirms Serious Air Combat Deficiencies - 0 views

www.pogo.org/...ort-confirms-deficiencies.html

war & peace F35 military-procurement failures

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Aug 15 - No Cached
  • A new leaked test, which was first exposed by War is Boring, provides more evidence that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s demonstrated performance is inferior to the current fighters it is designed to replace. Specifically, the report finds that, in a series of 17 dogfights, the F-35 was consistently outmatched by an aging F-16. An F-35A test pilot with extensive dogfighting experience in F-16s and F-15s wrote the report, detailing his cockpit observations during the January 2015 maneuvering combat tests of the F-35 against a 30-year-old F-16 at Edwards Flight Test Center in California. The report, marked for official use only (FOUO), highlighted serious concerns about the plane’s performance in this key mission.
  • Paul Merrell on 01 Aug 15
     
    Still more evidence that the F35 is DoD's most expensive boondoggle in history. It loses 100 per cent of simulated dogfights with earlier fighter jets that it is intended to replace. And it can't be fixed. This article from the Project on Government Oversight details the history of the F35 boondoggle.
Paul Merrell

US air war against jihadists in Syria begins - The Long War Journal - 0 views

www.longwarjournal.org/...us_launches_airstrik.php

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria ISIL al-Nusra war-begins

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • The United States and "partner nation forces" have expanded airstrikes against the Islamic State into Syria, broadening the war with the jihadist group beyond Iraq. Additionally, the US targeted the Khorasan Group, a coordinating council made up of al Qaeda leaders in Syria. US military officials involved in the operation told The Long War Journal that the strike package includes US B-1 bombers, carrier-based F/A-18 fighters and ground-based F-15s and F-16s, remotely piloted drones, and Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from warships. Airstrikes targeted Islamic State command and control centers in Raqqah, the jihadist group's de facto capital in Raqqah province in eastern Syria, as well as arms caches, supply depots, and ground units near the Iraqi border. Rear Admiral James Kirby, the Pentagon's spokesman, confirmed that airstrikes have begun. "I can confirm that US military and partner nation forces are undertaking military action against ISIL [Islamic State] terrorists in Syria using a mix of fighter, bomber and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles," Kirby said in a statement obtained by The Long War Journal. In the early morning of Sept. 23, US Central Command, or CENTCOM, which is directing the operations in Iraq and Syria, provided further details of the attack.
  • Fourteen strikes against the Islamic State were executed using by "a mix of fighters, bombers, remotely piloted aircraft and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles," according to a statement by CENTCOM. Forty-seven cruise missiles were "launched from the USS Arleigh Burke and USS Philippine Sea, which were operating from international waters in the Red Sea and North Arabian Gulf." "The strikes destroyed or damaged multiple ISIL targets in the vicinity of the towns of Raqqah in north central Syria, Dier al Zour, and Abu Kamal in eastern Syria and Hasakah in northeastern Syria," the statement says. "The targets included ISIL fighters, training compounds, headquarters and command and control facilities, storage facilities, a finance center, supply trucks and armed vehicles." According to the Syrian Observator for Human Rights, more than 70 Islamic State fighters were killed in the strikes and and over 300 were wounded. Other countries that participated in the operation include Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Additionally, the US launched eight airstrikes against "a network of seasoned al Qaeda veterans - sometimes referred to as the Khorasan Group - who have established a safe haven in Syria to develop external attacks, construct and test improvised explosive devices and recruit Westerners to conduct operations." The strikes targeted "training camps, an explosives and munitions production facility, a communication building and command and control facilities" as part of an effort "to disrupt the imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests."
  • CENTCOM did not provide details on the names or numbers of Islamic State and al Qaeda fighters killed. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that "no less than 50 fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra (most of them were Syrian fighters), were killed by air strikes by the warplanes of the international coalition." In addition, eight civilians, including three children and a women, are reported to have been killed. CENTCOM was clear that only the US targeted al Qaeda's network in Syria. The Khorasan Group is closely tied to the Al Nusrah Front and other jihadist groups in Syria, which are at odds with the Islamic State. These groups are poised to gain from any setbacks to the rival Islamic State. President Barrack Obama stated 13 days ago that the US air campaign against the Islamic State, which began in northern Iraq on Aug. 7, would be expanded into Syria. US and French warplanes are now operating over Irbil, Sinjar, Kirkuk, the Mosul and Haditha dams, southwest of Baghdad (likely in Jurf al Sakhar in northern Babil), and somewhere on the Euphrates River. According to CENTCOM, the US has launched 194 airstrikes in Iraq since Aug. 7. The Islamic State has threatened to retaliate against the US and other Western countries that participate in military action against the jihadist group. Just yesterday, Abu Muhammad al Adnani, the spokesman for the Islamic State, called for Muslims in Western countries to wage jihad. [See Threat Matrix report, Islamic State spokesman again threatens West in new speech.]
Paul Merrell

Do We Really Want a New World War With Russia? | New Eastern Outlook - 0 views

m.journal-neo.org/...nt-a-new-world-war-with-russia

war & peace Russia weaponos SU-34 electronic-countermeasures Bumblebees

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Washington continues making an international fool of herself by her inability to effectively counter the impression around the world that Russia, spending less than 10% of the Pentagon annually on defense, has managed to do more against ISIS in Syria in six weeks than the mighty US Air Force bombing campaign has done in almost a year and half. One aspect that bears attention is the demonstration by the Russian military of new technologies that belie the widely-held Western notion that Russia is little more than a backward oil and raw material commodity exporter. Recent reorganization of the Russian state military industrial complex as well as reorganization of the Soviet-era armed forces under Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu’s term are visible in the success so far of Russia’s ISIS and other terror strikes across Syria. Clearly Russian military capabilities have undergone a sea-change since the Soviet Cold War era. In war there are never winners. Yet Russia has been in an unwanted war with Washington de facto since the George W. Bush Administration announced its lunatic plan to place what they euphemistically term “Ballistic Missile Defense” missiles and advanced radar in Poland, Czech Republic, Romania and Turkey after 2007. Without going into detail, BMD technologies are the opposite of defensive. They instead make a pre-emptive war highly likely. Of course the radioactive ash heap in such an exchange would be first and foremost the EU countries foolish enough to invite US BMD to their soil.
  • What the Russian General Staff has managed, since the precision air campaign began September 30, has stunned western defense planners with Russian technological feats not expected. Two specific technologies are worth looking at more closely: The Russian Sukoi SU-34 fighter-bomber and what is called the Bumblebee hyperbaric mortar weapon.
  • The plane responsible for some of the most damaging strikes on ISIS and other terror enclaves in Syria is manufactured by the Russian state aircraft industry under the name Sukhoi SU-34. As the Russian news agency RIA Novosti described the aircraft, “The Su-34 is meant to deliver a sufficiently large ordnance load to a predetermined area, hit the target accurately and take evasive action against pursuing enemy planes.” The plane is also designed to deal with enemy fighters in aerial combat such as the US F-16. The SU-34 made a first test flight in 1990 as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the chaos of the Yeltsin years caused many delays. Finally in 2010 the plane was in full production. According to a report in US Defense Industry Daily, among the SU-34 features are: • 8 ton ordnance load which can accommodate precision-guided weapons, as well as R-73/AA-11 Archer and R-77/AA-12 ‘AMRAAMSKI’ missiles and an internal 30mm GSh-301 gun. • Maximum speed of Mach 1.8 at altitude.
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  • • 3,000 km range, extensible to “over 4,000 km” with the help of additional drop tanks. The SU-34 can also refuel in mid-air. • It can fly in TERCOM (Terrain Contour Matching) mode for low-level flight, and has software to execute a number of difficult maneuvers. • Leninets B004 phased array multimode X-band radar, which interleaves terrain-following radar and other modes.
  • Clearly the aircraft is impressive as it has demonstrated against terrorist centers in Syria. Now, however, beginning this month it will add a “game-changer” in the form of a new component. Speaking at the Dubai Air Show on November 12, Igor Nasenkov, the First Deputy General Director of the Radio-Electronic Technologies Concern (KRET) announced that this month, that is in the next few days, SUKHOI SU-34 fighter-bombers will become electronic warfare aircraft as well. Nasenkov explained that the new Khibiny aircraft electronic countermeasures (ECM) systems, installed on the wingtips, will give the SU-34 jets electronic warfare capabilities to launch effective electronic countermeasures against radar systems, anti-aircraft missile systems and airborne early warning and control aircraft. KRET is a holding or group of some 95 Russian state electronic companies formed in 2009 under the giant Russian state military industry holding, Rostec.
  • Russia’s advances in what is euphemistically termed in military jargon, Electronic Counter Measures or ECM, is causing some sleepless nights for the US Pentagon top brass to be sure. In the battles in eastern pro-Russian Ukraine earlier this year, as well as in the Black Sea, and now in Syria, according to ranking US military sources, Russia deployed highly-effective ECM technologies like the Krasukha-4, to successfully jam hostile radar and aircraft. Lt. General Ben Hodges, Commander of US Army Europe (USAREUR) describes Russian ECM capabilities used in Ukraine as “eye-watering,” suggesting some US and NATO officers are more than slightly disturbed by what they see. Ronald Pontius, deputy to Army Cyber Command’s chief, Lt. Gen. Edward Cardon, told a conference in October that, “You can’t but come to the conclusion that we’re not making progress at the pace the threat demands.” In short, Pentagon planners have been caught flat-footed for all the trillions of wasted US taxpayer dollars in recent years thrown at the military industry.
  • During the critical days of the March 2014 Crimean citizens’ referendum vote to appeal for status within Russia, New York Times reporters then in Crimea reported the presence of Russian electronic jamming systems, known as R-330Zh Zhitel, manufactured by Protek in Voronezh, Russia. That state-of-the-art technology was believed to have been used to prevent the Ukrainian Army from invading Crimea before the referendum. Russian forces in Crimea, where Russia had a legal basing agreement with Kiev, reportedly were able to block all communication of Kiev military forces, preventing a Crimean bloodbath. Washington was stunned.
  • Thereafter, in April, 2014, one month after the accession of Crimea into the Russian Federation, President Obama ordered the USS Donald Cook into the Black Sea waters just off Crimea, the home port of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, to “reassure” EU states of US resolve. Donald Cook was no ordinary guided missile destroyer. It had been refitted to be one of four ships as part of Washington’s Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System aimed at Russia’s nuclear arsenal. USS Donald Cook boldly entered the Black Sea on April 8 heading to Russian territorial waters. On April 12, just four days later, the US ship inexplicably left the area of the Crimean waters of the Black Sea for a port in NATO-member Romania. From there it left the Black Sea entirely. A report on April 30, 2014 in Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta Online titled, “What Frightened the American Destroyer,” stated that while the USS Donald Cook was near Crimean (Russian by that time) waters, a Russian Su-24 Frontal Aviation bomber conducted a flyby of the destroyer. The Rossiyskaya Gazeta went on to write that the Russian SU-24 “did not have bombs or missiles onboard. One canister with the Khibin electronic warfare complex was suspended under the fuselage.” As it got close to the US destroyer, the Khibins turned off the USS Donald Cook’s “radar, combat control circuits, and data transmission system – in short, they turned off the entire Aegis just like we turn off a television by pressing the button on the control panel. After this, the Su-24 simulated a missile launch at the blind and deaf ship. Later, it happened once again, and again – a total of 12 times.”
  • While the US Army denied the incident as Russian propaganda, the fact is that USS Donald Cook never approached Russian Black Sea waters again. Nor did NATO ships that replaced it in the Black Sea. A report in 2015 by the US Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office assessed that Russia, “does indeed possess a growing EW capability, and the political and military leadership understand the importance…Their growing ability to blind or disrupt digital communications might help level the playing field when fighting against a superior conventional foe.” Now new Russian Khibini Electronic Counter Measure systems are being installed on the wingtips of Russia’s SUKHOI SU-34 fighter-bombers going after ISIS in Syria.
  • A second highly-advanced new Russian military technology that’s raising more than eyebrows in US Defense Secretary ‘Ash’ Carter’s Pentagon is Russia’s new Bumblebee which Russia’s military classifies as a flamethrower. In reality it is a highly advanced thermobaric weapon which launches a warhead that uses a combination of an explosive charge and highly combustible fuel. When the rocket reaches the target, the fuel is dispersed in a cloud that is then detonated by the explosive charge. US Military experts recently asked by the US scientific and engineering magazine Popular Mechanics to evaluate the Bumblebee stated that, “the resulting explosion is devastating, radiating a shockwave and fireball up to six or seven meters in diameter.” The US experts noted that the Bumblebee is “especially useful against troops in bunkers, trenches, and even armored vehicles, as the dispersing gas can enter small spaces and allow the fireball to expand inside. Thermobarics are particularly devastating to buildings — a thermobaric round entering a structure can literally blow up the building from within with overpressure.”
  • We don’t go into yet another new highly secret Russian military technology recently subject of a Russian TV report beyond a brief mention, as little is known. It is indicative of what is being developed as Russia prepares for the unthinkable from Washington. The “Ocean Multipurpose System: Status-6” is a new Russian nuclear submarine weapons system designed to bypass NATO radars and any existing missile defense systems, while causing heavy damage to “important economic facilities” along the enemy’s coastal regions. Reportedly the Status-6 will cause what the Russian military terms, “assured unacceptable damage” to an adversary force. They state that its detonation “in the area of the enemy coast” (say, New York or Boston or Washington?) would result in “extensive zones of radioactive contamination” that would ensure that the region would not be used for “military, economic, business or other activity for a long time.” Status-6 reportedly is a massive torpedo, designated as a “self-propelled underwater vehicle.” It has a range of up to 10 thousand kilometers and can operate at a depth of up to 1,000 meters. At a November 10 meeting with the Russian military chiefs, Vladimir Putin stated that Russia would counter NATO’s US-led missile shield program through “new strike systems capable of penetrating any missile defenses.” Presumably he was referring to Status-6.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15
     
    Not to mentiont that Russia has deployed its S-400 surface to air defense system to Syria, which is 2 generations later than the currently deployed U.S. Patriot systems. The S-400 can knock down aircraft or missiles flying up to 90,000 feet and travels at over 17,000 mph, very near Earth escape velocity. It has a lateral range of nearly 300 miles.
Paul Merrell

U.S. to Keep Warplanes in Jordan, Pressing Syria - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...f-chemicals-in-syrian-war.html

war & peace Syria Jordan CIA Patriot-missiles F-16-fighters buffer-zone

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Ratcheting up the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, the United States will keep American warplanes and antimissile batteries in Jordan, officials said Saturday.
  • The decision, which came at the request of Jordan, means that a detachment of American F-16 warplanes and Patriot missile-defense systems would remain in Jordan after a military exercise there concludes next week. The move followed President Obama’s decision last week to send arms to Syrian rebels and came as efforts were being made on multiple fronts on Saturday to increase the pressure on the government.
  • In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry renewed his efforts to persuade Iraq to curtail Iranian air shipments of arms to Syria.
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  • The Central Intelligence Agency has been training rebels in Jordan under a covert program, and weapons that are to be sent to the opposition by the United States are expected to be funneled through Jordan, both of which might heighten the risk of Syrian retaliation, including against possible training areas.
  • Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, highlighted the challenges in imposing a no-fly zone in Syria in a conference call with reporters on Thursday, and made it clear that the White House was not eager to take on such an open-ended commitment. But the Patriots and F-16s would have some utility if the United States decided to support the establishment of a buffer zone between Syria and Jordan. Contingency plans for such a zone, which would be enforced by Jordanian troops on the Syrian side of the border and supported politically by the United States, have already been developed.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Jun 13
     
    A U.S.-backed invasion of Syria by Jordan to establish a "buffer zone", enforced by U.S. Patriot missiles and F16 fighters? Not to mention the U.S. carrier/missile fleet in the Mediterranean. This would still be an war of aggression, invasion of another nation's sovereignty. A "buffer zone" in context is in effect just a smaller no-fly zone. It still needs Security Council approval unless Obama is willing to risk launching WWW III without the Security Council's blessing.  The steady escalation of military force positioning around Syria continues. But it's a tinder box situation. One mistake by either side and it could be Hell on Earth. 
Paul Merrell

Russia says illegal to impose Syria no-fly zone from Jordan - Yahoo! News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/fly-zone-jordan-100046084.html

war & peace Syria Jordan no-fly-zone Patriot-missiles F-16-fighters

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday any attempt to enforce a no-fly zone over Syria using F-16 fighter jets and Patriot missiles from Jordan would violate international law. Russia, which has protected Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at pressuring him to end violence, vehemently opposes any foreign military intervention in the Syrian conflict. "There have been leaks from Western media regarding the serious consideration to create a no-fly zone over Syria through the deployment of Patriot anti-aircraft missiles and F-16 jets in Jordan," said Lavrov, speaking at a joint news conference with his Italian counterpart. "You don't have to be a great expert to understand that this will violate international law," he said. The United States has moved Patriot missiles and fighter jets into Jordan, officially as part of an annual exercise in the past week, but making clear that the military assets could stay on when the war games are over. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that a U.S. military proposal to arm rebels fighting against Assad also calls for a limited no-fly zone inside Syria that could be enforced by U.S. and allied planes on Jordanian territory.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Jun 13
     
    Russia is correct in regard to international law. That would require a U.N. Security Council resolution and Russia will veto that.  Perhaps a good time to remember that NATO commander Gen. Breedlove said that establishing a no-fly zone over Syria would constitute an act of war and would be far messier than Lybia because of Syria's greater military strength and weaponry. http://www.stripes.com/news/breedlove-no-fly-zone-over-syria-would-constitute-act-of-war-1.223788 But the hawks in Congress are vociferously pushing for a no-fly-zone nonetheless. They want the U.S. directly involved in fighting a new war. 
Paul Merrell

How The US Is Arming Both Sides Of The Iraqi Conflict - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38799.htm

ISIL U.S.-foreign-policy war by proxy war & peace

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Recall a week ago we wrote "US Begins Delivering F-16s To Iraq This Week, A Decade After It Wiped Out Iraq's Air Force" in which we said: ... the US will deliver the first of 36 F-16 fighter jets to Iraq in what Baghdad's envoy to the United States called a "new chapter" in his country's ability to defend its vast borders with Iran and other neighbors.   ....the US earlier in March provided Iraq with some 100 Hellfire missiles as well as assault rifles and other ammunition. Then in April the US sent more arms, providing Iraq with 11 million rounds of ammunition and other supplies. It is unknown how many of these have fallen into Al Qaeda/ISIS hands (we do know that at least one Iraqi Black Hawk chopper was captured during the rush for Mosul). What is known is that as PBS Frontline reported two weeks ago, while the administration has denied arming Syrian "rebels", i.e. the same ISIS militants that have crossed the border and are now fighting in Iraq... 
  • ... the reality is that it has. From: "Obama Says Not Arming Syrian Rebels, Syrian Rebels Say He Is" ... the Syrian rebels themselves say they are already armed and trained by US in the use of sophisticated weapons and fighting techniques, including, one rebel said, "how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush." The interviews are the latest evidence that after more than three years of warfare, the United States has stepped up the provision of lethal aid to the rebels, as PBS notes "it appears the Obama administration is allowing select groups of rebels to receive US-made anti-tank missiles."   The commander of the unit also told Ali that their American contacts had asked him to bring 80 to 90 members of his unit to Ankara for training.  One of the fighters said they received three weeks of training in how to conduct ambushes, conduct raids and use their weapons. They also said they received new uniforms and boots.  “They trained us to ambush regime or enemy vehicles and cut off the road,” said the fighter, who is identified only as “Hussein.” “They also trained us on how to attack a vehicle, raid it, retrieve information or weapons and munitions, and how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush.”
  • To summarize: the US was arming and training the same Al Qaeda/ISIS groups of Jihadists, that it concurrently gave Iraq weapons to fight. And since the Iraq army has so far proven utterly incapable of any resistance, it is now up to US drones to "fight" the same "rebels" that the US itself was collaborating with until a month or so ago. The clear winner here? The US military-industrial complex, of course, as well as the banks who lend money to the governments to fight wars provoked by various "developed nation" spy agencies. Collateral damage? Millions of innocent people on the ground in Syria and Iraq, and everywhere else too.
Paul Merrell

A-10 Warthogs replace American F-16s at İncirlik Air Base - 0 views

national.bgnnews.com/...10461

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Incirlik A-10 F16 reassignment

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • "On Oct. 20, airmen and 12 A-10 Thunderbolt IIs from the 75th fighter squadron from Moody AFB, Georgia, arrived at İncirlik Air Base, Turkey, where they will operate in support of Operation Inherent Resolve," according to the defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said the bombers will replace the six F-16s that arrived in August which are currently repositioned with their crews and support personnel at the Aviano Air Base in Italy. "The A-10s repositioned from an undisclosed location in the CENTCOM area of operations," the official said. Turkey opened the İncirlik Air Base in August and began strikes on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) targets inside Syria in late August after Turkey and the U.S. finalized a deal on Turkey's involvement in air operations against the militant group.  "Turkey is a NATO ally, close friend of the United States and an important partner in the international Coalition against ISIL," the official said. "The use of Turkish bases for U.S. strike and supporting aircraft has been a very important force multiplier." The A-10 Thunderbolt II is coveted for its agility at "low air speeds and altitude" and "is a highly accurate and survivable weapons-delivery platform”. It can fly over battlefields "for extended periods of time and operate in low ceiling and visibility conditions", according to the U.S. military.
  • Paul Merrell on 22 Oct 15
     
    The A-10 is the U.S. military's premier close air support fighter, primarily a tank-killer.  ISIL and other al-Qaida factions in Syria have very few captured tanks. The Syrian Army has lots. So whose tanks is it that the U.S. intends to obliterate?
Paul Merrell

PressTV-'US jets in Turkey to deter Russia attacks' - 0 views

www.presstv.ir/...Syria-USAF-F15-Russia-Pentagon

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria Turkey F-15s Russia

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • US fighter jets have been deployed in Turkey to protect slower American warplanes from potential Russian or Syrian attacks, a Pentagon official says.Six F-15C warplanes are tasked with providing cover for bomber, attack and cargo aircraft from threats posed by Syrian and Russian fighters, an unnamed US defense official told USA Today on Tuesday.The US Air Force B-1 bombers, A-10 and AC-130 attack planes, which are reportedly used in US-led strikes on Daesh (ISIL) positions in Syria, all fly at slow speeds and are vulnerable to attacks from enemy pilots, the official added.He added that cargo planes that are airdropping ammunition for US-backed militants will also be protected.
  • Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced Tuesday that the fighter jets, sent to Turkey’s Incirlik Airbase last week, will be protecting the Turkish airspace."At the request of the government of Turkey, the US Air Force F-15Cs that arrived last week will conduct combat air patrols to assist in defense of the Turkish airspace," Laura Seal, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement Tuesday."We will be conducting these patrols at the request of the government of Turkey. Turkey faces increased instability along its border with Syria and Iraq and irresponsible behavior from actors in the region. This includes the incursions Russia made into Turkey's — and thereby NATO's — airspace in October," the statement noted.According to NATO officials, Russian Sukhoi SU-30 and SU-24 jets, based in Syria, entered the Turkish airspace early in October. Ankara scrambled two F-16s to intercept the planes.
Paul Merrell

US deploys fighter jets in Poland and Lithuania amid Ukrainian turmoil - RT News - 0 views

rt.com/...us-fighter-jets-poland-830

war & peace Ukraine Russia Poland U.S. foreign policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • The US is sending a dozen F-16 fighter jets and nearly 300 service personnel to Poland by Thursday as part of a training exercise in response to the crisis in neighboring Ukraine, the Polish defense ministry confirmed. The agreement to deploy US military forces in Poland was made between US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and Poland’s Minister of National Defense Tomasz Siemoniak during a telephone conversation on Sunday, March 9, 2014, according to a statement on the official website of the Polish Ministry of National Defense. "The squadron will number twelve F-16 planes and will transport 300 soldiers," Polish Defense Ministry spokesman, Jacek Sonta, confirmed to AFP. Initially, the training exercise was planned to be smaller but was increased and pushed forward because of the “tense political situation” in neighboring Ukraine, added Sonta.
Paul Merrell

Putin condemns Turkey after Russian warplane downed near Syria border | World news | Th... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...own-jet-near-border-with-syria

war & peace Turkey Russia fighters

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Vladimir Putin has called Turkey “accomplices of terrorists” and warned of “serious consequences” after a Turkish F-16 jet shot down a Russian warplane on Tuesday morning, the first time a Nato country and Moscow have exchanged direct fire over the crisis in Syria. The Russian president, speaking before a meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan in Sochi, said the plane had been shot down over Syrian airspace and fell 4km inside Syria. Putin said it was “obvious” the plane posed no threat to Turkey.
  • “Our military is doing heroic work against terrorism … But the loss today is a stab in the back, carried out by the accomplices of terrorists. I can’t describe it in any other way,” he said. Putin suggested the Turks were shielding Islamic State terrorists from Russian attacks, saying: “Do they want to make Nato serve Isis?” Ankara and the Kremlin gave conflicting accounts of the incident, which appears to have occurred in an area near the Turkish-Syrian border straddling Iskenderun and Latakia. The Turkish military said it scrambled two F-16 fighter jets after a plane entered Turkish airspace in the province of Hatay at 9.20am on Tuesday, warning it to leave 10 times in five minutes before shooting it down. A government official said: “In line with the military rules of engagement, the Turkish authorities repeatedly warned an unidentified aircraft that they were 15km or less away from the border. The aircraft didn’t heed the warnings and proceeded to fly over Turkey. The Turkish air forces responded by downing the aircraft.
  • “This isn’t an action against any specific country: our F-16s took necessary steps to defend Turkey’s sovereign territory.” Russia’s defence ministry, in a series of tweets, confirmed that a Russian Su-24 had been shot down, but insisted the plane had never left Syrian airspace and claimed that fire from the ground was responsible. “At all times, the Su-24 was exclusively over the territory of Syria,” the defence ministry said. “The Su-24 was at 6,000 metres and preliminary information suggests it was brought down by fire from the ground. The circumstances are being investigated.” A rebel brigade in Syria said both pilots had been shot dead as they parachuted from the jet. The Turkish TV network CNN Türk reported that one of the pilots was found dead. A graphic video purporting to show a dead Russian pilot has been widely circulated.
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  • The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Russian helicopters were combing the crash site area in Jabal al-Turkman in Syria’s northern Latakia province for the pilots, and have apparently blocked wireless communications.
  • Sinan Ülgen, a former Turkish diplomat who is now the chairman of the Edam thinktank in Istanbul, said Tuesday’s incident had been coming for some time. “There were two airspace violations [in the past few weeks], and after that a very high-level Russian military delegation came to Turkey to talk about it, including a top air force official. They apologised for one of the incidents, saying that in that case the Russian pilot didn’t speak the language. So we thought we had an understanding and solved the problem. “So it’s a surprise that it happened since that visit,” said Ülgen. “But it’s not a surprise in terms of Russian strategy. Since the intervention the Russians have been testing the Turkish response at its borders and its rules of engagement. “In this case, the pilot was warned a number of times. First at 13 miles out from the Turkish border, and then at five miles out, which is when Turkish jets scramble. It went past all those thresholds,” he said.
  • Putin said there would be “serious consequences” for Russia-Turkish relations. “We have always treated Turkey as a friendly state. I don’t know who was interested in what happened today, certainly not us. And instead of immediately getting in contact with us, as far as we know, the Turkish side immediately turned to their partners from Nato to discuss this incident, as if we shot down their plane and not they ours.” Turkey opposes Assad and has condemned the Russian intervention for targeting rebels not affiliated with the terror group Islamic State. The latest incident highlights the grave risks of clashes of arms between the various international forces that have intervened in Syria. A coalition led by the US is conducting an campaign against Isis in the country, and American and Russian officials have worked on ensuring there are no clashes between their forces as they pursue their separate campaigns. But the shooting down of the Russian plane is an escalation that leaves open the possibility of a clash between a Nato member and Russia, whose intervention shows an increasing assertiveness in international affairs.
Paul Merrell

Russia Deploys S-400 Air Defense Systems to Syria - Geopolitics - nsnbc international |... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...e-systems-to-syria-geopolitics

war & peace Syria Russia S-300 S-400 fighters

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Moscow responds to the downing of a Su-24 bomber by a Turkish F-16 by deploying S-400 Air Defense Systems to Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia will use every available resource to ensure the safety of flights over Syria, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov assures that Moscow is not planning a war with Turkey. The geopolitical context.
  • Putin also commented on the protection of the Hmeimim Air Base in Syria, saying: “The S-300 air defense complex will be moved to our air base in Syria. I do hope that this and other measures that we will take will be enough to make flights safe. … I would like to say that we will take the most serious attitude to what has happened and all of our means will be employed for maintaining security.” Putin learned about the downing of the Su-24 during talks with Jordanian King Abdullah II. Putin described the incident as a stab in the back from a State sponsor of terrorism. Turkey, for its part, had called on NATO members to discuss the incident. NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg noted that Turkey had the right to defend itself. The incident was, however, rather downplayed by governments of most NATO member States. Historically, the shoot-down of a military jet is rarely a precursor of a war, even though sensationalized media reports could make one believe otherwise.
  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented on the incident, saying that Russia had no plans to wage a war against Turkey. Lavrov stressed that: “Our attitude towards Turkish people has not changed. … We have questions only to the Turkish leadership.” Deescalating tensions caused by the incident is in fact also in Moscow’s interest, considering the Russian – Turkish “Turkish Stream” pipeline project. The pipeline can compensate for the loss of stability in Ukraine and counter Washington’s and London’s ambitions to throw a spanner into Russian – Continental European commerce and relations based on, among others, converging energy-security interests. The incident is, in other words, one match in ….. ……
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  • On Wednesday Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu commented on the incident, saying that Russia would deploy the S-400 Triumf Air Defense System to the Hmeimim Air Base. Shoigu noted that the decision to deploy the system had been made by Russia’s commander-in-chief.
  • A Game of Geopolitics. It is noteworthy that the incident occurred in northern Lattakia province, in a region that is controlled by a Turkmen militia and Jabhat al-Nusrah. Both are Turkish proxies. Although it is not officially declared policy, most independent analysts agree that primarily Washington and London attempt to establish a Kurdish Corridor in northern Syria, northern Iraq as well as a belt of low-intensity conflicts from the Mediterranean, along Russia’s southern borders to Pakistan. While Turkey is supporting and cooperating with the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq, it is opposed to a larger Kurdish region along its southern border in Syria. Hence Ankara’s support of Jabhat al-Nusrah and Turkmen “rebels” in northwestern Syria. Moscow for its part, is a traditional ally of the Turkish Kurdistan Worker’s Party PKK, using the PKK as a Moscow-version of NATO’s stay-behinds. It is within this geopolitical context that the downing of a single Russian Su-24 attains the perspective it deserves. It is one incident in a regional proxy war, that can only be played out due to the fact that the UN and the UN Security Council are virtually defunct.
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Nov 15
     
    The deployment of the S-400 systems had been announced prior to the Russian fighter jet being shot down by Turkey.
Paul Merrell

NATO, Russia must talk, security leaders say - POLITICO - 0 views

www.politico.com/...ato-russia-syria-turkey-216200

war & peace NATO Russia Turkey fighters

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • The downing of a Russian fighter jet by Turkey highlights the growing danger posed by a pattern of provocative military behavior by Moscow, U.S. and European security officials said Tuesday, calling for a revival of military-to-military talks between Russia and NATO that were shelved last year. The first-ever shoot-down of a Russian plane by a member of the Western alliance comes after months of brinkmanship by Russian forces on several continents and a series of NATO responses, including stepped-up military exercises, that have placed the former Cold War foes on a footing that at times has looked just short of war.Story Continued Below NATO leaders themselves seemed anxious to find a way to turn down the temperature after a Turkish F-16 destroyed a Russian Su-24 that Turkey claimed had crossed over from Syria. Turkish leaders called it at the least the fourth such incursion in recent weeks, while Russia maintains it did not breach Turkish airspace.
  • On Capitol Hill, Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican and a member of the Armed Services Committee who also serves as president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, said in a statement: "I echo NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg's sentiments calling for all NATO partners to deescalate tensions and focus on the fight against ISIL." Others from across the spectrum viewed the disputed incident as a potential opportunity to de-escalate what has increasingly become a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Some security experts said NATO and Russia should convene a special forum that was established expressly for the two sides to hold military discussions. The forum has atrophied since the alliance cut off most ties over Moscow's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in March 2014. "The way the Russians have behaved in the last 18 months, sending submarines into harbors, simulating nuclear bombing missions against NATO countries, flying their aircraft without transponders, and having incursions into Turkish air space, something was going to happen," said Ivo Daalder, who stepped down as the U.S. ambassador to NATO in 2013. "Because we don't have mechanisms to talk about this there is a danger that this could lead to escalation."
  • A collection of former defense and foreign ministers of Britain, Poland, Russia, Germany, Turkey and France also reissued their call Tuesday to use the NATO-Russia Council, codified in 2002, to hammer out a broad agreement to "prevent accidental incidents or miscalculations leading to an escalation of tension and even confrontation." Two former NATO secretaries general endorsed the position. The stakes were already high before Tuesday. NATO reported more than 400 intercepts of Russian aircraft in 2014 — four times as much as the year before. Russia also reported that it has detected twice as many NATO fighter aircraft flying near its borders in 2014 than in 2013 — more than 3,000 in all.
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  • The report, compiled by the European Leadership Network, the Russian International Affairs Council, the Polish Institute of International Affairs and the International Strategic Research Organisation in Ankara, was funded by the nonprofit Carnegie Corp. of New York and Nuclear Threat Initiative. "Each side is convinced that its actions are justified by the negative changes in their security environment," the task force concluded. "Second, an action-reaction cycle is now in play that will be difficult to stop." Russia has also sent its combat aircraft dangerously close to American and Canadian airspace in recent years. Earlier this year, for example, the North American Air Defense Command reported that two Russian tu-95 Bear bombers were intercepted flying off the coast of Alaska near key U.S. military facilities. The NATO-Russia Council, which grew out of an agreement between the two former enemies in 1997, has been used successfully in the past to work through several highly sensitive disagreements.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Nov 15
     
    NATO blinked before Russia did. That's a rebuff for Turkey. 
Paul Merrell

[Conversation] | Mountain Ambush, by Andrew Cockburn | Harper's Magazine - 0 views

harpers.org/...mountain-ambush

war & peace Syria Russia Turkey SU24 fighters

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • On November 24, a Turkish F-16 fighter jet shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber near the border of Turkey and Syria. In the immediate aftermath, officials from the two countries offered contradictory versions of what transpired: Russian president Vladimir Putin claimed that the plane was flying over Syrian territory when it was downed; Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan countered that it was inside Turkey’s border and had been warned ten times to alter its course. Hours later, President Obama threw his support behind Erdogan. “Turkey,” he said, “has a right to defend its territory and its airspace.” I asked Pierre Sprey, a longtime defense analyst and member of the team that developed the F-16, to examine what we know about the downing and determine what actually occurred that morning.
  • Looking at the detailed Russian timeline of what happened—as well as the much less detailed Turkish radar maps—I’d say the evidence looks pretty strong that the Turks were setting up an ambush. They certainly weren’t doing anything that would point to a routine air patrol along the border. Their actions in no way represented a routine, all day long type of patrol.
Paul Merrell

Out of Gas: Turkey is Losing Its Battle with Russia | Observer - 0 views

observer.com/...-losing-its-battle-with-russia

war & peace Turkey Russia fighters retaliation

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Turkey has told the Reuters news agency that Russia has stopped work on its nuclear power plants.  In reality, the Turks are exaggerating.  The Russians haven’t really stopped—they have really only slowed down. It is another piece in the intensifying conflict that has enveloped Russia and Turkey over the downing of a Russian AU-24 slow moving bomber by a Turkish F-16 fighter jet. The nuclear deal began in 2013. The Turks promised to pay $20 billion and the Russian nuclear company Rosatom promised to build four 1,200 megawatt nuclear electrical power plants in Turkey. The first plant was scheduled to be opened in 2019, but from the very outset things have not run on schedule.  One reason is that the project confronted international regulatory problems.
  • The Russians have done this before—only with Iran.  They slowed down on the original proposal, Iran took the Russians to the World Court, and sued them. They wanted their nuclear plants.
  • Now, because of their experience with Iran, Russia realizes that stopping entirely would prove costly. Huge disincentives and penalties are built into the contract.  And Turkey has already started shopping around for someone else to finish the nuclear job. Good luck. Here is the crux of the problem and why Turkey can never win in this conflict with Russia. Turkey is almost totally dependent on imported energy. They have been counting on these nuclear plants and should be conducting back-door diplomatic negotiations to resurrect the deal , but they do not appear to be doing that. Tensions between the Turks and Russians do not seem to be dissipating. So much so that Russia has also stopped importing Turkish fruits and vegetables. The reason they give is poor Turkish sanitation and hygiene, but the real reason is because the jet shot down the bomber. This isn’t  just a case of no more Turkish pistachio nuts or dates. Turkish fruits and vegetables account for 20 percentof Russia’s total fruit and vegetable consumption. This is a huge loss for the Turkish economy.  A $4 billion annual loss in fruit and vegetable revenue. Russia has said they will easily make up the loss by importing more from Iran and Israel.
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  • Turkey cannot get that much gas replaced.  They are in public conflict not only with Russia but also with alternative suppliers.  They sided with the Muslim Brotherhood so Egypt will not supply them.  They have been very aggressively critical of Saudi Arabia so they will not supply them.  There is always Israel and Israel could, potentially, help supply Turkey’s natural gas needs—but Turkey, a former ally of the Jewish state, has been openly hostile to Israel. The Russian minister of agriculture has said, “Allah has already decided to punish Turkey’s ruling clique, depriving them of mind and reason.” For their part, Turkey is counting on the help of the EU and the general disdain almost everyone has for Putin and his style of leadership especially in the aftermath of Russia’s land grab on Crimea and their invasion of Ukraine. But Turkey is misreading the situation.  Just because the world criticizes Putin and Russia it does not translate into action.
  • Russia has also cancelled the junkets and all expense included holiday vacation trips that Russians make  every year to Turkey.  The numbers tell the complete story. Last year 3.3 million Russians vacationed in Turkey.  That was 10 percent of all the tourists that visited Turkey. For Russia, however pleasant they were, these vacations are not essential and they will find someplace else to fill their vacation needs.  Turkey, however, will not find 3.3 million other tourists. Russia wants to punish Turkey.  That should be clear.  And Vladimir Putin definitely has the ability to make things difficult for Turkey.  The balance of trade is pretty clear. Russia purchases $30 billion in goods from Turkey per year. All of those services are easily replaced elsewhere. But Turkey relies on Russia for $20 billion of natural gas every year.  If that flow is even slightly altered, even for a single day—Turkey will grind to a halt.  That natural gas engines Turkey’s electric grid. Gas is next. Russia will start pulling it.  They have already cancelled work on the underwater gas pipeline which, together with the nuclear electric plants, would eventually make Turkey more energy independent.
  • This is the case even in the Middle East. Russia marched into Syria, set up a huge air-force base, and established a significant presence.  The West warned the Russians not to put boots on the ground.  Russia went in anyway and their actions were met with only a few tepid condemnations.  When the Turkish F-16 jet shot down the SU-24 Russia bomber, that’s when international voices were raised— and they were raised to urge calm and deescalate tensions, not to blame Russia. Turkey thinks that because there are UN sanctions against Russia there is a way to leverage that power and squeeze Russia.  If the world stood by when Russian military pranced into Ukraine and Crimea how can Turkey expect them to act now? Russia will get away with everything.  And despite pressure that Turkey is trying to apply—the real pressure will be placed by Russia on Turkey.  No one is willing to step forward and help Turkey.  If this continues, Russia will destroy them.
Paul Merrell

M of A - The Two Versions Of The Latakia Plane Incident - 0 views

www.moonofalabama.org/...he-latakia-plane-incident.html

war & peace Syria Turkey Russia fighters

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Turkey says two of its F-16 fighters shot down a jet that had crossed into Turkey and then crashed in Syria: Two Turkish F-16's shot down a Russian-made SU-24 jet on Nov. 24 near the Syrian border after it violated Turkish airspace, presidential sources said. Turkey shot down the jet after it failed to heed the warnings within the rules of engagement. Initial reports said the jet belonged to Russia, but presidential sources later clarified that the jet's nationality was unknown. The Turkish Armed Force also stated that the jet of “unknown nationality” had been warned 10 times in five minutes about its violation of the border. Meanwhile, a Turkish official told Reuters that two warplanes approached Turkish border and were warned before one of them was shot down.
  • Russia's official version of the incident is remarkably different from Turkey's: Today an aircraft from the Russian air group in the Syrian Arab Republic crashed on the territory of Syria supposedly shot down from the ground. The aircraft was flying at the altitude of 6 000 metres. The status of the Russian pilots is being defined. According to the preliminary data, the pilots managed to eject from the warplane. The circumstances of the crash are being defined. During all the flight time, the aircraft was flying only within the borders of the Syrian territory. That was registered by objective monitoring data.
  • UPDATE: Putin just held a press conference with the Jordan King Abdullah on his side(!) and boy was he pissed. Some major points: Confirms Turkish version of air-to-air missile but says plane was in Syrian airspace Describes Turkish attack as "a stab in the back by accomplices of terrorists" "Together with our US partners we signed an agreement to prevent" incidents like this "Ankara will discuss this tragedy with NATO as if it was Russia who shot down their jet. Does Turkey want NATO to serve ISIS goals?" Accuses Turkey of financing, protecting ISIS Turkey doing oil business with ISIS This will have serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations
Paul Merrell

Turkish F-16 to Withdraw after Being Confronted with Russian Su-34 - 0 views

southfront.org/-confronted-with-russian-su-34

war & peace Syria Turkey invasion Russia bombers

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Turkey inserted its commandos into border regions of Syria inhabited by Turkmens, while Russian Air-force started hammering their positions immediately. Russian bombers in this operation were escorted by nine Su-34 fighter jets, that flew along Syria-Turkey border. Turkey scrambled F-16 , but their pilots didn’t even dare to interfere with bombing of their own on the ground, reports online portal Fakti.
Paul Merrell

U.S. Caves to Russia on Syria - Won't Continue Protecting Al Qaeda - 0 views

www.washingtonsblog.com/...tinue-protecting-al-qaeda.html

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syrian war negotiations Russia al-Nusrah

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • On Friday, September 9th, America’s Secretary of State John Kerry, and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, came to an agreement on Syria, for the second time. (The previous agreement fell apart). Like the first ‘cease-fire’, this one concerns the ongoing occupation of many parts of Syria by foreign jihadists, who have been hired by America’s allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in order to overthrow Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad. (It’s nothing like a democratic revolution there; it’s a war over pipelines.)The main sticking-point in these negotiations has been much the same as it was the first time around: America’s insistence that Russia and Syria be prohibited from bombing Al Qaeda in Syria, which is the international group under the name of “Al Nusra” there. The United States has not tried to protect ISIS in Syria — only Al Nusra (and their subordinate groups), and it protects them because Nusra has provided crucial leadership to the jihadist groups that the United States finances in Syria for overthrowing and replacing Assad. Whereas the U.S. government doesn’t finance all of the jihadist groups in Syria (as the allied royal owners of Saudi Arabia and of Qatar do), the U.S. does designate some jihadist groups as ‘moderate rebels’, and this second round of cessation-of-hostilities will protect these groups (but this time not the Nusra fighters who lead them) from the bombings by Syria and by Russia. This new agreement is a complex sequence of sub-agreements laying out the means whereby Syria and Russia will, supposedly, continue to bomb Nusra while avoiding to bomb the U.S.-financed forces in Syria. Now that the U.S. has 300 of its own military advisors occupying the parts of Syria that the U.S.-sponsored jihadists control, Nusra will (presumably) no longer be quite so necessary to America’s overthrow-Assad campaign.
  • In the joint announcement on Friday night in Geneva, Secretary Kerry said, “Now, I want to be clear about one thing particularly on this, because I’ve seen reporting that somehow suggests otherwise: Going after Nusrah is not a concession to anybody. It is profoundly in the interests of the United States to target al-Qaida — to target al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria, which is Nusrah.”
  • Gareth Porter bannered on February 16th, “Obama’s ‘Moderate’ Syrian Deception”, and he reported that, “Information from a wide range of sources, including some of those the United States has been explicitly supporting, makes it clear that every armed anti-Assad organization unit in those provinces is engaged in a military structure controlled by Nusra militants. All of these rebel groups fight alongside the Nusra Front and coordinate their military activities with it,” and he stated that “instead of breaking with the deception that the CIA’s hand-picked clients were independent of Nusra, the Obama administration continued to cling to it.” Porter was pretending that the U.S. leadership originated at the CIA, instead of at the White House — which was actually the case. The CIA was simply doing what the U.S. President wanted it to do there. Porter continued his upside-down attribution of leadership and responsibility in the matter, by adding that, “President Obama is under pressure from these domestic critics as well as from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other GCC allies to oppose any gains by the Russians and the Assad regime as a loss for the United States.” In no way was/is it obligatory for the U.S. President to adhere to “domestic critics” and “GCC [royal Arabic] allies,” much less for him to be ordered-about by his own CIA — quite the contrary: “The buck stops at the President’s desk.” Obama isn’t forced to hire and promote neoconservatives to carry out his foreign policies — he chooses them and merely pretends to be blocked by opponents.
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  • On February 20th, Reuters headlined “Syrian opposition says temporary truce possible, but deal seems far off”, and reported that, “A source close to peace talks earlier told Reuters [that] Syria’s opposition had agreed to the idea of a two- to three-week truce. The truce would be renewable and supported by all parties except Islamic State, the source said. It would be conditional on the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front no longer being attacked by Syrian government forces and their allies.” In other words: up till at least that time, the U.S. was still at one with the Sauds’ insistence upon protecting Al Qaeda in Syria. On March 1st, Steve Chovanec headlined, “Protecting al-Qaeda”, and he made clear that the group that Obama was backing, the Free Syrian Army (so named with assistance from their CIA minders), were almost as despised by the Syrian people as were ISIS itself. Citing a Western polling firm’s findings, he noted that, “According to a recent poll conducted by ORB, it was found that most Syrians more or less hold both ISIS and the FSA in equal disdain, 9% saying the FSA represents the Syrian people while 4% saying that ISIS does. The similarity in [Syrians’] opinion is reflective of the similarity in [those two groups of jihadists’] conduct.” Furthermore, as I have noted, both from that polling-firm and another Western-backed one, the vast majority (82%) of Syrians  blame the U.S. for the tens of thousands of foreign jihadists who have been imported into their country, and 55% of Syrians want Assad to be not only the current President but their next President, as a consequence of which the U.S. government refuses to allow Assad to run for the Presidency in the next election. (Indeed, that’s largely the reason why Obama has been trying to overthrow Assad and replace him with a jihadist government, like the Sauds.)
  • Clearly, the U.S. Government’s top objective in Syria is to overthrow Assad, whereas the Russian Government’s top objective there is to prevent America’s allies from seizing the country. As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has well explained and documented, the U.S. CIA has been trying ever since 1949 to overthrow Syria’s government and replace it with one that the Sauds (and etc., including U.S. oil, gas, and pipeline companies) want. So, this is normal American foreign policy. This doesn’t mean that our Presidents have to behave this way — only that they do (even if the U.S. ‘news’ media don’t report it, and many U.S. ‘historians’ likewise ignore it decades later).
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