The D Brief: Israel, Hezbollah exchange fire; Exploding pagers’ secret source; Army’s new small-drone unit; Navy’s low-cost weapons; And a bit more.
After suffering two major device attacks this week, Hezbollah terrorists attacked northern Israel with 140 rockets on Friday—while Israeli jets targeted a Hezbollah leader again in Beirut, AP and Reuters report from the city formerly known as the Paris of the Middle East.
“120 missiles were launched at areas of the Golan Heights, Safed and the Upper Galilee,” while “20 missiles were shot at the areas of Meron and Netua,” according to the Israeli military, which didn’t say whether the attack caused any casualties.
As for the Beirut strike, at least three people were killed and 17 others wounded in the city’s southern suburbs, AP reports.
Among those reportedly killed: Ibrahim Aqil, who “commanded Hezbollah's operations in Syria for years and built a tight-knit operational relationship with Russia's Spetsnaz,” said Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute. He was allegedly “killed alongside members of Hezbollah's elite Radwan unit as they were holding a meeting,” according to a Reuters spot report.
Update: Israeli intelligence officials made the pagers that detonated across Lebanon and Syria, killing more than a dozen people and wounding more than 2,700 others on Tuesday, the New York Times reported late Wednesday, citing “12 current and former defense and intelligence officials.”
Related reading: “Hezbollah handed out pagers hours before blasts - even after checks,” Reuters reported separately.
Welcome to this Friday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1777, British troops defeated a Continental Army force at Paoli, Pennsylvania, using only bayonets. By forgoing gunshots during the nighttime ambush, the British achieved surprise—and were able to find their foes by their muzzle flashes.
Army embraces Ukraine-style warfare with new all-drone unit. Read Sam Skove’s gripping account of the 101st Airborne’s Lethal Unmanned Systems platoon as it fights Geronimo, the crack opfor at Fort Johnson, Louisiana.
Air Force braces for new nuclear-war scenarios. The service is planning a tabletop exercise to gauge U.S. readiness to react to a wide spectrum of nuclear-related scenarios, part of a larger effort to prepare for them, a service leader said on Wednesday. “What if, God forbid, there was a low-yield [nuclear weapon] use in Europe tomorrow?” Lt. Gen. Andrew J. Gebara, deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, said at the Air & Space Forces Association conference outside Washington, D.C. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports, here.
Army to lawmakers: We’ll review all training materials. Hauled before Congress to explain why “a terrorism briefing at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, erroneously listed mainstream activist groups, including pro-life and animal rights advocates, as terror organizations,” as Military.com put it, assistant Army secretary for manpower and reserve affairs Agnes Schaefer said, "The Army is undertaking an Army-wide review to ensure that these or similar materials are not being disseminated elsewhere." More, here.
Further reading:
- “Attack submarine crew is first to receive new Arctic Service Medal,” Task & Purpose reports.
The U.S. says it’s keeping its mid-range Typhon mobile missile batteries in the Philippines, despite protests from China and Russia, Reuters reported Thursday from Manila.
Location: The island of Luzon, which is about 160 miles from the southern tip of Taiwan. The island also faces the South China Sea.
About the Typhon: It can “launch missiles including SM-6 missiles and Tomahawks with a range exceeding 1,600 km (994 miles),” Reuters writes.
Said one Philippine official: “We want to give [China] sleepless nights” with the system’s location.
Coming soon: “A new naval pier at a Philippine naval base in Subic Bay,” and the U.S. Navy’s Naval Sea Systems Command is helping build it, USNI News reported this week.
Background: “In 2022, Manilla activated the base…to berth its larger warships at a strategic location in Western Luzon for sorties into the South China Sea.” But with the Philippines expected to acquire several ships over the next four years, including two frigates and six corvettes, its navy will need more space for those additional vessels, and Subic could be just the place. Read more, here.
Developing: The U.S. military is working to amass anti-ship weapons to help counter China, Reuters reported separately this week. That includes the classified QUICKSINK weapon from Boeing and BAE Systems, “an inexpensive and potentially plentiful bomb equipped with a low-cost GPS guidance kit and a seeker that can track moving objects,” according to the wire service.
According to one possible conflict scenario, “the U.S. military would use Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASM) or SM-6 missiles to damage a Chinese warship and its radars, then bombard the vessel with lower-cost weapons such as QUICKSINK,” one industry executive told Reuters.
About those stockpiles: “More than 800 SM-6 missiles are due to be bought in the next five years,” and “Several thousand Tomahawks and hundreds of thousands of JDAMs are already in U.S. inventories,” according to government documents outlining military purchases. Continue reading, here.
ICYMI: CNO Franchetti is hoping naval lessons from Yemen can improve U.S. odds in a future conflict with China, the Associated Press reported Wednesday as the CNO unpacked her new “2024 Navigation Plan and America's Warfighting Navy,” which was published this week.
Some of those lessons involve the ability to adapt old weapons to new threats (using a “fully automatic artillery gun” to shoot down aerial drones, e.g.) as well as newer weapons to old threats (like Ukraine’s use of naval drones against the Russian navy).
Business Insider’s headline from the CNO’s new plan: “US Navy Planning for Possible War by 2027 Amid China Concerns: Admiral.” Story, here.
From the region:
- “German warships in the Philippines: a sign of things to come?” the South China Morning Post reported this week;
- Opinion: “America and the Philippines Should Call China’s Bluff,” Philippine reporter Marites Dañguilan Vitug wrote this week in Foreign Affairs;
- “Hong Kong man jailed for 'seditious' T-shirt,” the BBC reported Thursday in the first case stemming from a new national security law originating in Beijing that was passed in March;
- “The Chinese economy is faltering — and that means more trade tensions,” the Washington Post reported Friday;
- “Seeking to counter China, US awards $3 billion for EV battery production in 14 states,” AP reported Friday;
And lastly, from nuclear power to the AI craze: “A deal between Constellation Energy and Microsoft will restart Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island, the site of the country’s worst nuclear accident, to help power the tech giant’s growing artificial intelligence ambitions,” the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Don’t remember the 1979 partial meltdown? Here’s a contemporaneous AP article recapping the release of radioactive gas and the official obfuscations. “There was no radiation, they said, though there was. Nobody was overdosed, though four workers were. There was no human error, there was. There was no radiation leak, there was. The leak was totally controlled, it was not.”
To learn more, check out “Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island,” an award-winning 2022 documentary about locals’ efforts to get industry and government to tell the truth. Here’s a review.
Have a safe weekend, and we’ll see you on Monday.