Tag: middle east

Laser Rocket Anti-Drone Systems Being Rushed To U.S. Forces In The Middle East

The U.S. Navy recently put in a rush order for new counter-drone systems that use laser-guided 70mm rockets as their effectors to help defend American forces in the Middle East. The Electronic Advanced Ground Launcher System (EAGLS) is very similar in form and function to U.S.-supplied VAMPIREs that Ukrainians are now using in combat. The purchase of the EAGLS came just days ahead of Iran’s unprecedented missile and drone strikes on Israel, which have only added to long-standing concerns about uncrewed aerial and other threats to U.S. forces in the region.

Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) announced on April 12 that it had awarded a firm-fixed-price contract with a not-to-exceed value of $24,186,464 to MSI Defense Solutions for the purchase of five EAGLS Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-UAS). This sole-source deal also includes various ancillary items and training support.

Keep reading

ISRAEL CONFLICT SPREADS TO 16 NATIONS AS BIDEN ADMIN SAYS THERE’S NO WAR

THE REGIONAL WAR in the Middle East now involves at least 16 different countries and includes the first strikes from Iranian territory on Israel, but the United States continues to insist that there is no broader war, hiding the extent of American military involvement. And yet in response to Iran’s drone and missile attacks Saturday, the U.S. flew aircraft and launched air defense missiles from at least eight countries, while Iran and its proxies fired weapons from Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

The news media has been complicit in its portrayal of the regional war as nonexistent. “Biden Seeks to Head Off Escalation After Israel’s Successful Defense,” the New York Times blared this morning, ignoring that the conflict had already spread. “Iran attacks Israel, risking a full-blown regional war,” says The Economist. “Some top U.S. officials are worried that Israel may respond hastily to Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile attacks and provoke a wider regional conflict that the U.S. could get dragged into,” says NBC, parroting the White House’s deception.

The Washington-based reporting follows repeated Biden administration statements that none of this amounts to a regional war. “So far, there is not … a wider regional conflict,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Thursday, in response to a question about Israel’s strike on the Iranian Embassy. Ryder’s statement followed repeated assertions by Iranian leadership that retaliation would follow — and even a private message from the Iranians to the U.S. that if it helped defend Israel, the U.S. would also be a viable target — after which the White House reiterated its “ironclad” support for Israel.

Keep reading

Gulf Allies Warn US Not To Launch Strikes On Iran From Their Territory

America’s Gulf allies say they don’t want to get caught in the crossfire of any potential US/Israel and Iran shooting war. The United States has made it clear that it is ready to assist Israel in any potential response to Iranian attack. Tehran is poised to imminently retaliate for the April 1st Israeli airstrikes on its embassy in Damascus.

The Arab Gulf countries are worried that the US could launch attacks on Iran from their territories or airspace. Middle East Eye (MEE) reports, “Gulf monarchies are urging the US not to use American military bases on their territories to strike in response to any potential Iranian attack on Israel,” according to security sources.

“The US’s Gulf allies are working overtime to shut down avenues that could link them to a US reprisal against Tehran or its proxies from bases inside their kingdoms, according to a senior US official who spoke with MEE on condition of anonymity,” the report continues. 

This is to include warplanes, as the US Air Forces utilizes various airbases in the region. US allies said to have expressed serious concern include Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman and Kuwait.

Naturally, these countries are worried that Iran could strike back directly on their territories in response to any potential US strikes.

MEE writes that these have “raised questions about the intricate details of basing agreements that permit tens of thousands of US troops to be stationed across the oil-rich peninsula.” Further, “They are also moving to prevent US warplanes from flying over their airspace in the event the US conducts a retaliatory strike on Iran.”

Rumors have persisted throughout Friday that some countries have even warned that US troops could be banned from their territories should the US carry out aggression against Iran from out of the Gulf region, but such specific threats of shuttering bases have not been confirmed.

Keep reading

Pentagon Using AI Program to Identify Targets in Middle East and Ukraine

A defense official said that US Central Command (CENTCOM) has deployed an AI program to help identify targets to bomb in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. The US used the AI targeting system dubbed “Project Maven” to locate Russian targets that were destroyed by Ukrainian forces.  

A senior CENTCOM official speaking with Bloomberg said AI systems helped to identify alleged rocket launchers in Yemen. The outlet described the statement made by Schuyler Moore, CENTCOM chief technology officer, as the “strongest known confirmation that the US military is using the [AI] to identify enemy targets that were subsequently hit by weapons’ fire.”

“We’ve been using computer vision to identify where there might be threats,” Moore told Bloomberg. She went on to say that the program has accelerated due to the situation in Israel. “October 7th everything changed,” CENTCOM’s CTO explained.

“We immediately shifted into high gear and a much higher operational tempo than we had previously,” Moore added, saying US forces were able to make “a pretty seamless shift” to Maven after a year of digital exercises.

Chief Warrant Officer 4 Joey Temple explained the value of Maven is increasing the number of targets a soldier can sign off on. He estimates that the number of targets could be boosted from 30 to 80 per hour. 

According to Bloomberg, he “describes the process of concurring with the algorithm’s conclusions in a rapid staccato: ‘Accept. Accept. Accept.’” Moore also expressed this view, stating, “The benefit that you get from algorithms is speed.”

While Moore touted the program’s deployment, it is unclear if it has had any positive impact on achieving US goals in Yemen. Washington has admitted that recent strikes on Houthi positions have failed to erode the group’s military capabilities.

Keep reading

US Deploys Anti-Drone Laser Systems in the Middle East to Field Test Prototypes

The Department of Defense has deployed four laser systems designed to intercept drones and rockets in the Middle East. The Pentagon has been developing a laser-style interceptor to reduce the cost of shooting down UAVs and rockets. 

Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus announced the new deployment of Directed Energy Maneuver Short Range Air Defense (DE M-SHORAD) prototypes to the Middle East. The Army developed the weapons system in coordination with RTX, formerly Raytheon. The former employer of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, RTX, has received over $100 million to develop the platform. 

DE M-SHORAD, according to RTX, is a 50-kilowatt vehicle-mounted laser designed to intercept drones, missiles, and rockets at short range. RTX and the Pentagon believe laser systems will be a cheaper alternative for downing cheap drones and rockets. 

The four interceptors deployed to the Middle East are mounted on Stryker armored vehicles. The 2024 Pentagon funding bill authorized nearly $700 million in spending on the development and procurement of DE M-SHORAD systems. 

Keep reading

The Killing of 3 American Troops Was an Avoidable Tragedy

American blood has been drawn in a Middle Eastern war for the first time in a while. Iraqi guerrillas allied with Iran killed three U.S. troops and wounded dozens more along the Jordanian-Syrian border on Sunday, using an explosive drone. President Joe Biden has promised to “all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing.” Members of Congress have called for a harsh response, with some Republicans demanding a full-on war against Iran.

The government of Jordan, clearly not keen on getting dragged into the conflict, has denied that the attack happened on its side of the border. Iran shrugged off responsibility for the bombing, insisting that the issue is entirely between the United States and “resistance groups in Iraq and Syria.” The Iraqi fighters may have indeed been acting on their own accord. Iraqi commander Qais al-Khazali had complained about U.S. airstrikes on Iraq in a speech last November: “You are cautious when it comes to Iranian blood, but you pay no regard to Iraqi blood. Therefore, Iraqis should teach you a lesson for what you have done.”

The immediate cause of the violence is the war in Gaza, which prompted Iraqi militias to break a truce they had with the U.S. military. But this particular attack was a long time coming. The target was Tower 22, an extension of al-Tanf, a base that the U.S. military maintains in Syria for murky and confusing purposes. Over the past few years, Israeli aircraft have used al-Tanf’s airspace to strike Iran’s forces, and Iranian forces have struck back at the base. It was only a matter of time before Americans were dragged into the proxy war, with tragic results.

U.S. Special Forces had first set up shop in al-Tanf during the war against the Islamic State. Their plan was to support the Revolutionary Commando Army, a friendly Syrian rebel group. That project failed embarrassingly. The Revolutionary Commando Army suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Islamic State in 2016, and one of its leaders ran off with American-made guns after he was accused of drug trafficking in 2020. Kurdish-led forces elsewhere in Syria became a much more reliable partner for the U.S. military.

Meanwhile, Russia—which is allied with the Iranian and Syrian governments—agreed to enforce a 55 kilometer “deconfliction zone” around al-Tanf. The zone also included Rukban, an unofficial refugee camp built by Syrians fleeing government persecution. (The Syrian government reportedly tortured two former Rukban residents to death in October 2022.) No country wanted to take responsibility for the camp, and it took almost a decade for the U.S. military to begin providing food aid to Rukban.

Keep reading

U.S. Asks China to Ask Iran to Ask Houthis to Stop Attacking Red Sea Shipping

The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that the Biden administration has asked top Chinese officials to pressure Iran to make its Houthi proxy terrorists in Yemen halt their attacks on Red Sea shipping.

According to the Times’s sources, these pleas from top Biden officials — all the way up to White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken — have fallen on deaf ears in Beijing.

The Biden team has reportedly been asking China for help for “the past three months” but saw “little evidence China had put any pressure on Iran to restrain the Houthis.”

The best Beijing could do was a bland statement asking all parties to guarantee the safety of Red Sea shipping. The Houthis responded by assuring China and Russia that ships flying their flags would not be attacked. Terrorist attacks on the vessels of other nations continued unabated.

Keep reading

US Military Showdown Imminent in Red Sea as UN Issues Final Warning

The UN Security Council’s warning to Yemen’s Houthi movements to halt attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea was among the last diplomatic steps before military action, according to officials from multiple countries participating in a coalition to protect sea traffic.

The Houthis control large swaths of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, in the wake of a decade-long civil war and military intervention by neighbouring Saudi Arabia. The Iranian aligned group has used its Red Sea coastline to target international shipping with an array of homemade missiles and drones in protest against Israel’s ongoing offensive in the Gaza Strip.  

The attacks, which include the seizure of a Japanese-managed containership, have drawn the ire of the U.S., U.K., and other allies as they attempt to secure the sea lanes that account for about 15 percent of global commercial traffic.

The security council issued its warning Wednesday after Houthis fired at least 18 cruise missiles and drones at U.S. and U.K. warships patrolling the area on Tuesday. 

Voting 11-0 with abstentions by China and Russia, the resolution is expected to provide additional diplomatic cover for military action.

During a press comment in Bahrain, where he is meeting with regional officials about the situation in Gaza, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the Houthi leadership that “actions have consequences.”

Keep reading

String of US and Israeli Assassinations Further Inflame the Middle East

On December 25, 2023, Razi Mousavi, a senior officer in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Mousavi was close to former IRGC Quds force commander, Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in 2020 by US President Donald Trump in Baghdad. Israeli airstrikes in Syria earlier in December also killed two other Iranian generals.

On January 2, an Israeli drone strike assassinated Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, Lebanon along with six others.

Al-Arouri was the deputy chief of the Hamas political bureau, and one of the founding members of Hamas’ armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. On October 31, Israeli forces destroyed al-Arouri’s house in Aroura near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

On January 3, at least 93 people were killed in twin bombings in Kerman, Iran, with 284 wounded, including children. The crowd there was gathered to mark the fourth anniversary of the US assassination of Qassem Soleimani. 

On January 4, ISIS claimed responsibility for the two explosions in a statement posted on its affiliate Telegram channels, and said two ISIS members had detonated explosive belts in the crowd in Kerman.

Experts pointed to the Islamic State branch based in neighboring Afghanistan, known as ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K. Tehran has alleged that ISIS-K has been behind many foiled plots in the last five years. Most of those arrested were Iranians, Central Asians, or Afghans from the Afghanistan-based affiliate’s network. 

On January 4, a US airstrike assassinated Mushtaq Talib al-Saidi in central Baghdad, Iraq. The Iraqi deputy commander was killed on Palestine Street, at the headquarters of an Iraqi military group, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, which has claimed several attacks on US forces.

Hezbollah al-Nujaba falls under the command of the Iraqi army, and had played a vital role in the defeat of ISIS in Iraq. The group immediately condemned the assassination of al-Saidi, and said the US-Iraqi military agreement had been violated.

Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, confirmed that US forces carried out an airstrike in Baghdad, killing a military commander, but excused the killing because al-Saidi was backed by Iran. 

Iraqis in the streets promised revenge against the US after the assassination. “No American soldier shall stay in Iraq!” one man yelled, firing his gun into the air.

Besides the 2,500 US troops in Iraq, which were invited to Iraq initially, there are 900 US troops in Syria illegally occupying the most productive oil wells in the northeast.

Now that the US-supported genocide on Gaza has killed well over 20,000 Palestinians, local groups in Iraq and Syria have been attacking US troops there in an effort to drive them out.

US officials have ordered about 120 attacks since October 17, usually using drones or rockets against groups in Iraq. The Pentagon acknowledged they had killed a number of “militants”.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, had said last year he backed the need for US troops in Iraq, but condemned the US attack in Iraq, which killed an Iraqi service member and injured 18 other people, including civilians.

Keep reading

US Warns Military Action Being Prepared Against Houthis in Red Sea

The U.S and allies have given a final warning to Yemen’s Houthi movement to halt attacks on international shipping lanes in the Red Sea or face imminent military action as U.S. officials said that planning for air strikes and special operations is underway.

The Houthis control about half of Yemen’s coastline along the Red Sea’s congested sea lanes after a years-long civil war in Yemen that the Iranian-backed group largely won.

Since the fighting in Gaza began in October, the Houthis conducted at least 25 attacks from missile launches to hijackings in response to Israel’s ongoing military operation in the Gaza Strip targeting their key allies in Hamas. The Houthis have also occasionally fired long-range missiles and drones at Israel itself throughout the conflict that began on Oct. 7 of last year after Hamas and its allies killed more than 1200 Israelis and kidnapped over 200. 

The statement from 13 countries including the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and multiple EU countries came as the Danish shipping behemoth Maersk said it would mostly suspend using Red Sea routes because of the threat.

Keep reading