New show of force near North Korea; US strikes ISIS camp in Libya; Russian sub fires cruise missiles into Syria; Kurds vote on independence today; and just a bit more...
“Unprecedented” show of force near North Korea. On Saturday, U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers escorted by F-15C fighter jets flew closer to the North Korean border than any similar U.S. mission this century, the Associated Press reported.
Other reasons why it’s noteworthy: it was flown at night, without allied accompaniment, and also without Marine Corps F-35Bs, The Aviationist noted, here.
Two can play that game, sort of. On Sunday, Pyongyang released propaganda videos showing U.S. planes and an aircraft carrier under fictional attack. Washington Post, here. That’s unlikely, but less so is North Korea’s threat to conduct an atmospheric thermonuclear test, delivered Friday.
All this follows President Trump’s own unprecedented threat last week to “totally destroy” North Korea, which he said was led by a “suicidal” leader he called “Rocket Man” at the General Assembly of the United Nations. “Veterans of diplomacy and national security and specialists on North Korea fear that, whatever their intended result, Mr. Trump’s increasingly bellicose threats and public insults of the famously thin-skinned Mr. Kim could cause the United States to careen into a nuclear confrontation driven by personal animosity and bravado,” wrote the New York Times. “‘It does matter, because you don’t want to get to a situation where North Korea fundamentally miscalculates that an attack is coming,’ said Sue Mi Terry, a former intelligence and National Security Council specialist who is now a senior adviser for Korea at Bower Group Asia. “It could lead us to stumble into a war that nobody wants.’”
Pyongyang is outmaneuvering the Trump administration, argues Adam Mount in Defense One: “Repeatedly over the course of the spring, North Korea has shown new dexterity in issuing credible, coercive threats in its campaign to weaken American alliances. Like Guam, the threat to conduct an atmospheric test is coercive: If Trump does not moderate his rhetoric and force posture, the test will occur. Like threats to test an ICBM, a thermonuclear weapon, and to overfly Japan, Ri’s statement regarding a nuclear test in the pacific is a test balloon to evaluate how the United States responds. The Trump administration has neglected to mount a tailored and specific response to each of these threats and each oversight paved the way for the next.” Read, here.
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Welcome to Monday’s edition of The D Brief by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. OTD1929: Lt. Jimmy Doolittle makes the first “blind flight,” proving that instrument-only flying is possible. Have something you want to share? Email us at the-d-brief@defenseone.com. (And if you’re reading this on our website, consider subscribing. It’s free.)
U.S. airstrikes returned to Libya on Friday, AFRICOM announced over the weekend. Six strikes targeting ISIS at a desert camp about 150 miles southeast of Sirte killed 17 militants and destroyed three of their vehicles, according to the U.S. military. “The camp was used by ISIS to move fighters in and out of the country; stockpile weapons and equipment; and to plot and conduct attacks,” AFRICOM said Sunday.
The strikes came from Reaper drones flying out of Sicily, The New York Times adds. Read on for a bit of context about the overall situation in Libya, here.
A French special forces soldier died fighting ISIS somewhere in the Middle East, France said Saturday. Agence France-Presse: “Military sources told AFP that it was the first French casualty since [Operation Chammal] was launched in September 2014.”
And a Russian general died from ISIS mortar fire in eastern Syria, Moscow’s defense ministry announced this weekend. His name: Lt. Gen. Valery Asapov, and he was “head of the 5th army in Russia's eastern command,” Haaretz and Reuters reported. According to Russian state-run RT news, Asapov was the highest-ranking Russian military officer to be killed in Syria.
Russia fired more cruise missiles into Syria’s northwestern Idlib governorate on Friday, Reuters reported off Russian state-run TASS news. “The Russian Defence Ministry on Wednesday said 29 Russian military policemen had been surrounded by jihadis as a result of that attack and that Russia had been forced to break them out in a special operation backed by air power… The strike, launched from the Mediterranean by Russia’s ‘Veliky Novgorod’ submarine, was part of a counter-offensive against a jihadi attack on government-held parts of northwest Syria near Hama on Tuesday.” More here.
And Iran used lethal drones to attack ISIS in eastern Syria, “near the Syrian-Iraqi border,” Reuters also reported this weekend, with few details.
An advance Trump would like: The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces seized a Conoco gas plant in eastern Syria’s Deir ez-Zor, The Wall Street Journal reports this morning. “The Conoco plant, one of the most important in the country, is capable of producing nearly 450 tons of gas a day, according to the local activist monitoring group Deir Ezzour24.”
But wait, weren’t the SDF focused on fighting ISIS in Raqqa? Yes, writes the Journal, “But when Russia-backed regime forces began capturing swaths of Deir Ezzour from Islamic State in recent weeks, the SDF launched a simultaneous operation in the province, which holds many of Syria’s oil and gas fields.” More, (paywalled) here.
Kurds vote for independence today, rattling neighbors. Kurdish voters headed to the polls today for a referendum vote on independence from Iraq. Unhappy with the developments: Iraq, Iran and Turkey, Reuters reports.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan threatened to close his country’s borders with northern Iraq and cut the flow of oil from Kurdistan.
Notes Reuters: “The [Kurdistan Regional Government] exports hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day through Turkey to international markets, in defiance of Iraq’s central government.”
Said Erdogan: “We have the tap. The moment we close the tap, then it’s done.” Added Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirum: “Our energy, interior and customs ministries are working on (measures). We are evaluating steps regarding border gates and air space. We will take these steps quickly.” More here.
SecDef Mattis heads to India — with Afghanistan, fighter jets and “drone deals” on the agenda, AFP reports. “Mattis is scheduled to arrive late Monday and is set to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his new defense minister, in the first visit by a top U.S. official since Donald Trump became president in January.”
What may lie ahead: "Mattis is likely to seek to persuade India to buy Lockheed Martin's F-16 Block 70 aircraft in a deal potentially worth $15 billion... The U.S. manufacturer is competing with Swedish defense giant Saab, whose Gripen E made its maiden flight in June. India has said it needs at least 100 single-engine fighters to counter the growing air threat posed by China and Pakistan."
And why drones? "Chinese assets have started to dominate the Indian Ocean region... a source familiar with the negotiations told AFP."
In neighboring Afghanistan, “A car bomber attacked a Danish convoy belonging to the NATO-led military mission in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Sunday, wounding [between three to five] civilians but leaving international forces unharmed,” Reuters reported this weekend.
So Russia’s big Zapad exercise with Belarus is over. And the folks at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Lab have a lengthy wrap-up of the need-to-knows out of that — including a “possible disconnect between Russia and Belarus from leadership to operational elements of each country.” Dive in, here.
In Puerto Rico: “Nowhere was safe,” the LA Times reported Saturday from San Juan. “Officials warned that the Guajataca Dam, about 70 miles west of San Juan, was in “imminent” danger of failure. The dam, built around 1928, supplies drinking and irrigation water to residents of towns in the municipalities of Isabela and Quebradillas.”
Complicating the recovery efforts: “95% of cell phone sites are out of service,” according to the Federal Communications Commission.
And the overall situation? “At least 10 people were reported killed in Puerto Rico because of Maria, which passed over the island early Wednesday,” The Hill reports. “The U.S. territory — which has roughly 3.4 million residents — is now 95 to 100 percent without power. About 90 percent of the U.S. Virgin Islands are also without power.”
The U.S. military stretched thin from these hurricanes, is The Hill’s headline. "The National Guard has activated thousands of members in recent weeks to help with rescue and recovery efforts during and after the storms. Puerto Rico activated its 5,200 National Guard troops, while the U.S. Virgin Islands activated its nearly 700-member unit. [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers division commander Brig. Gen. Diana Holland] said the Army Corps of Engineers has been steadily redeploying personnel out of Texas to Florida, the Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico. The military is trying to ease the strain on those troops."
On the bright side of these hurricane recovery efforts, “Drones are more helpful than ever” across Texas and Florida, CNN reported this weekend. Details, here.
Lastly today: an oldie but a goodie. It’s a diversionary story about aircraft, macho piloting and air traffic controllers on the west coast, brought to our attention on Facebook this weekend — though the story has been making the rounds for quite some time. How Popular Mechanics summarized it in July: “If you're going to show off, make sure you really are top dog.”
What happened (allegedly): SR-71 pilot Maj. Brian Shul told “a story about flying around the Western United States to build up crew hours when small plane pilots started calling into air traffic control to ask their ground speed. Shortly thereafter, a Navy F-18 pilot dials in to put them in their place, asking the controller to broadcast his speed over the air, a cool 620 knots across the ground. What the Navy pilot didn't realize was that a Blackbird was soaring through the area, at speeds that were...just a little faster.” Watch and listen to the story for yourself, right here.