.Afghanistan: The air war resumes ...
... with a vengeance, although perhaps with lighter ordnance intended to limit civilian casualties.
According to the operations summaries released by U.S. Air Forces Central Command headquarters in Qatar, daily close air support missions over Afghanistan are back up to the record level of over 70 per day reached earlier this summer. (The daily summaries resumed this week after an unexplained hiatus.)
CAS missions had dropped sharply in the past week during the international ruckus caused by a U.S. air strike on the village of Azizabad Aug. 22. That attack killed as many as 95 civilians, according to the Afghan government, the United Nations and independent press accounts. The U.S. command at first rejected those conclusions, but on Sunday, Gen. David McKiernan, the top allied commander in Afghanistan, ordered a re-investigation of the incident.
U.S. Central Command will run the re-investigation.
Meantime, the air war resumes, although it's hard to tell from the daily summaries exactly what's going on. On Tuesday, for instance, the Air Force reports that a Predator UAV "used Hellfire missiles to disarm anti-Afghan forces.'' The Hellfire carries a 20-pound anti-tank warhead, which would sure "disarm" anyone it hit.
Most of this week's reported operations did not involve heavier ordnance than 500-pound bombs, although on one mission a British aircraft fired Enhanced Paveway II munitions. They come in either a 680-pound or 1,228-pound variant; the report did not say which was used.
Even with the additional forces President Bush has approved for deployment to Afghanistan, soldiers and Marines engaged in operations there will continue to rely on heavy air support in the increasingly common cases where insurgents attack in large numbers.
For the air guys, it's a tricky balance between responding to calls from TICs (troops in contact) and risking the civilian casualties that are devastating personally -- and damaging to the U.S. cause.
Military Watch
According to the operations summaries released by U.S. Air Forces Central Command headquarters in Qatar, daily close air support missions over Afghanistan are back up to the record level of over 70 per day reached earlier this summer. (The daily summaries resumed this week after an unexplained hiatus.)
CAS missions had dropped sharply in the past week during the international ruckus caused by a U.S. air strike on the village of Azizabad Aug. 22. That attack killed as many as 95 civilians, according to the Afghan government, the United Nations and independent press accounts. The U.S. command at first rejected those conclusions, but on Sunday, Gen. David McKiernan, the top allied commander in Afghanistan, ordered a re-investigation of the incident.
U.S. Central Command will run the re-investigation.
Meantime, the air war resumes, although it's hard to tell from the daily summaries exactly what's going on. On Tuesday, for instance, the Air Force reports that a Predator UAV "used Hellfire missiles to disarm anti-Afghan forces.'' The Hellfire carries a 20-pound anti-tank warhead, which would sure "disarm" anyone it hit.
Most of this week's reported operations did not involve heavier ordnance than 500-pound bombs, although on one mission a British aircraft fired Enhanced Paveway II munitions. They come in either a 680-pound or 1,228-pound variant; the report did not say which was used.
Even with the additional forces President Bush has approved for deployment to Afghanistan, soldiers and Marines engaged in operations there will continue to rely on heavy air support in the increasingly common cases where insurgents attack in large numbers.
For the air guys, it's a tricky balance between responding to calls from TICs (troops in contact) and risking the civilian casualties that are devastating personally -- and damaging to the U.S. cause.
Military Watch
posted by madtom at 11:43 PM
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