Iraq takes back a border town; NATO welcomes Montenegro; Chinese jet nearly hits US spy plane; GAO hits LCS; and a bit more.
Iraq says its troops have retaken the far western border city of Rutba from Islamic State militants. U.S. military spokesman Col. Steve Warren said Wednesday Rutba is a “small town with outsized strategic importance” to ISIS, who nevertheless “melted away,” though they left a small detachment and masses of IEDs to greet the Baghdad convoys that took two days to cover the roughly 200 miles to the city. And that raises further questions about the group’s ability to hold territory following a series of territorial losses since Ramadi was retaken in January. “Counter-terrorism forces, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, had entered the town from the south on Tuesday and taken control of al-Intisar district,” Reuters reports. “In addition to its linkage to Syria, Rutba was considered an important ‘support zone’ which Islamic State was using to stage operations into battle areas further north and east.”
With half of Iraq’s troops staged in Baghdad to protect the capital from a flurry of suicide bombs over the past week and a half, the Pentagon is urging Iraq not to neglect its northern and western provinces, Military Times reported Wednesday. Perhaps the push into Rutba confirms, at least in part, Baghdad’s willingness to heed that advice.
In Syria, Assad’s allied forces (helped by Hezbollah fighters, in particular) are trying to secure areas around Damascus, using “air and missle strikes” to seize a rebel stronghold east of the capital in the Ghouta suburbs, AP reports this morning.
Extremists, led by al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, are said to be joining forces in Syria as ceasefire is all but finished, Reuters reports nearly two weeks after AQ leader Ayman al-Zawahri urged jihadists in Syria to “unite or die.”
This latest move revives the “Jaish al-Fatah, or the army of conquest, a military alliance of disparate Islamist rebel groups that won big victories against government forces last year,” Reuters writes, adding, “Nusra's resurgence could undermine the Western-backed rebel groups that signed up to the truce and attended the peace talks, and gives Assad's government and its Russian and Iranian backers more reasons to press on with a war during which they have hit insurgents of all stripes.”
And on Wednesday, Col. Warren confirmed that the U.S. has abundant imagery of a new Russian operating base near Palmyra, “We know exactly where it is, we’ve seen it…and they're still building it up.”
Warren’s comments came just hours after Russian state-run media, RT, announced to the world that, no, in fact, Russia has not set up a new military base in Palmyra.
What can you do with an Vietnam-era OV-10 Bronco? Find, fix, and finish ISIS fighters, according to this report, which says the Broncos used an “APKWS, a 70 mm rocket with a laser seeker and control section attached… The Bronco’s ‘match grade’ MX-15HD FLIR turret and big high-def display in the cockpit make the aircraft among the most accurate precision strike platforms on the planet. Night after night, the OV-10s put this capability to work. Instead of blowing up buildings or convoys, Bronco crews were killing ISIS fighters standing in dark windows, or in a single truck surrounded by others.”
Speaking of old tech, Russia is bringing back its train-based missiles, in about four years, UPI reported Wednesday. “The decision of the Russian leadership to revive the production of rail-based missile systems may be interpreted as yet another response to the deployment of the U.S. missile defense system in Europe.”
For what it’s worth: “Three divisions of combat rail-based missile systems (four regiments in each and 12 trains carrying three Molodets [literally, “Good job!”] strategic missiles) were already in service in the Soviet/Russian Strategic Missile Forces from 1984 to 2007. The new rail-based missile systems will be equipped with the MS-26 Rubezh multiple-warhead missile, which is lighter, but no less efficient than the Molodets.” More here.
NATO foreign ministers will have their hands full as they begin a two-day meeting this morning in Brussels. In addition to talking Afghanistan, the Middle East and a resurgent Russia, “the ministers will officially welcome Montenegro as a new alliance member-designate, subject to approval by the U.S. Senate and parliaments in NATO’s other member states. The rapprochement between the former Yugoslav republic and NATO has been loudly opposed by Moscow,” AP reports, noting that, “It’s only the seventh time in NATO’s 67-year existence that the alliance is agreeing to grow.” More here.
An Airbus passenger jet with 66 people onboard has crashed in the Mediterranean Sea shortly after entering Egyptian airspace (175 miles north of Egypt’s coast) at an altitude of 37,000 feet early this morning. The flight was headed to Cairo from Paris, and Egyptian and French officials are not ruling out terrorism as the cause—indeed, Egypt’s aviation minister just announced the plane was more likely brought down by terrorism than mechanical failure.
Greece’s defense minister told reporters the plane, EgyptAir flight MS804, fell 22,000 feet, “swerved 90 degrees left and then 360 degrees to the right” before disappearing from radar, CNN and Agence France-Presse reports. Here’s glimpse at its flight path.
“It crashed around 130 nautical miles off the island of Karpathos,” a Greek aviation source told AFP, referring to an island northeast of Crete. And EgyptAir Holding Company’s vice president said there was “no distress call” before the plane vanished—though a signal was detected after the break in radar contact; however, as with most of this early information, there’s no confirmation yet that the distress signal picked up did not in fact come from one of the many ships already in the Med.
The French news source France24 is keeping a live blog with updates over here.
The website MarineTraffic is posting video updates to their Twitter feed of vessels that have been diverted to join the search for the plane, including some NATO vessels.
From Defense One
Come to the first-ever Defense One Tech Summit, on June 10. Join Defense Secretary Ash Carter and some of the brightest minds in military and consumer technology to discuss the future of innovation and national security at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Reserve your seat, here.
If Russia is selling, the Pentagon should keep buying — rocket engines, that is. What's the rush? Before hastily cutting off the engines we need, Congress should set the conditions for a better American space launch market. CSIS’ Todd Harrison makes his argument, here.
Here’s how one Navy IT team is teaching sailors the risks of social media. Sometimes it’s easier to show, not tell. A cautionary tale from Rota, Spain, via NextGov, here.
Welcome to Thursday’s edition of The D Brief, by Ben Watson, Bradley Peniston, and Marcus Weisgerber. On this day in 1848, the Mexican-American War ended with a treaty transferring California, Nevada, Utah, and land that would become part of four other states. Send your friends this link: http://get.defenseone.com/d-brief/. And let us know your news: the-d-brief@defenseone.com.
Does the U.S. Army still need tanks? You bet, says Phebe Novakovic, the chairman and CEO of General Dynamics, maker of the Abrams tank. “The way wars have been won since we have been recording history is boots on the ground. And boots on the ground are protected by tanks, she said Wednesday at an Economic Club of Washington event. “The U.S. tank capability is one of our national competitive advantages.”
More money is likely on the horizon for defense, Novakovic predicts. “In the United States, defense spending is driven by the threat or the perception of the threat. The world is not a safe place,” she said. “I think we’ll see some growth.” But that growth will not be near the levels seen at the high of the Iraq and Afghan wars. And remember, the defense budget is largely capped through 2021, meaning Congress would have to repeal the law to inject more dollars.
Will GD acquire any new firms? Don’t count on it. “We’re always open, but so far I haven’t seen too many attractive companies at good prices,” Novakovic said.
Chinese jets buzz U.S. spy plane. Pentagon officials said two J-11 fighter jets intercepted a U.S. Navy EP-3E Aries signals intelligence plane over the South China Sea — then drew within 50 feet, leading the Navy plane to descend some 200 feet to safety. (Chinese officials say “not true.”) Via Washington Post, here.
Flashback to 2001, when a collision with a Chinese fighter forced a similar EP-3 to land on China’s Hainan Island, where the crew was held for more than a week and the plane and its sensitive spy gear confiscated.
Chinese ready to send nukes to sea? Via the Daily Beast: “After decades of development, 2016 could be the year the Chinese navy finally sends its ballistic-missile submarines—‘SSBN’ is the Pentagon’s designation—to sea for the first time for operational patrols with live, nuclear-tipped rockets.” That, here.
And elsewhere in the Pacific, the seven-person crew of a B-52H bomber is safe after bailing out as their aircraft crashed on Guam. That, via USA Today, here.
House lawmakers passed their version of the defense authorization act, which would give troops a higher pay raise and clearing the way for a larger army—both of which are points the White House is not keen on advancing, Military Times’ Leo Shane III reports.
“The authorization plan, coupled with a pending defense appropriations bill, would shift $18 billion in temporary war funds into the base defense budget to pay for what Republicans call unmet military needs… But such a move would leave overseas missions without funding past next April, and create billions more in future infrastructure and personnel costs in coming years. White House and Pentagon officials have criticized the plan, saying it amounts to ‘gambling’ with military spending. President Obama has threatened to veto it.”
What’s more: “The House authorization also includes pieces from the the services’ $22 billion list of ‘unfunded priorities.’ There's $1.4 billion for 14 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, and $1.5 billion for 11 additional F-35s. The Air Force would get five more F-35As, and the Marine Corps would get two extra F-35Bs.”
The Senate reax: “So far, Senate Republicans have declined to go along with their House counterparts’ funding plan. They’ll take up their own draft on the Senate floor next week and, if passed, send the two versions of the annual legislation to a conference committee in early June.” Read the rest, here.
The U.S. Navy’s “new and improved” littoral combat ship might not survive combat, Bloomberg reports after getting its hands on a new GAO report. “The GAO recommended that Congress consider not funding any Littoral Combat Ships for fiscal 2017 ‘because of unresolved concerns with lethality and survivability, the Navy’s lack of requested funding to make needed improvements and the current schedule performance of the shipyards’ where Lockheed Martin Corp. and Austal Ltd. build different versions of the vessel.” However, “congressional support for the ship, and the shipbuilding jobs it provides, remains strong” despite a somewhat steady stream of bad news surrounding the ship’s development, many of which have been rolled up here by Larry Korb of the Center for American Progress, writing in Defense One.
Finally today: These Iraq and Afghanistan veterans—including one with a prosthetic leg—just scaled Everest to raise awareness for military suicides. ABC News has interviews and photos from the summit and expedition, here.