Archive for January, 2016
FRIDAY FOTO (January 29, 2016)
Cannon at Dusk.
U.S. Air Force photo by Alejandro Pena
U.S. Army Paratroopers fire high-explosive rounds from an M119A2 105mm howitzer during live-fire training at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska on January 11, 2016.
These soldiers are from the 25th Infantry Division’s 2nd Battalion, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team.
Odd fun fact: the motto of the 25th ID, first activated in Hawaii in 1941, is “Tropical Lightning.” While the division is still headquartered at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, two brigade combat teams, including the 4th BCT are posted in Alaska.
To see a photo essay of this live-fire training click here.
LATIN AMERICA: Zika Virus; Brazil’s Zika Battle
Zika Virus Worries.
(World map showing where active transmission of the Zika virus have been reported, mostly in Central and South America. Map: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
The World Health Organization says the Zika virus — which may be linked to birth defects — is spreading explosively in the Americas and may infect as many as four million people by the end of the year.
The global health agency says it will convene a special meeting on Monday (February 1) to decide whether to declare a public health emergency. The W.H.O. is moving swiftly to combat this outbreak after widespread criticism that it had allowed the last major global health crisis, Ebola, to fester without a coordinated, effective strategy, the New York Times reported Thursday (January 28).
At a briefing in Switzerland, Dr. Margaret Chan, the W.H.O.’s director-general, said Zika cases have been reported in 23 countries and territories in the region. “The level of alarm is extremely high,” she said Thursday.
Zika virus is spread to people through mosquito bites. The most common symptoms of Zika virus disease are fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis (red eyes), according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The illness is usually mild with symptoms lasting from several days to a week. Severe disease requiring hospitalization is uncommon, according to the CDC.
The outbreak in Brazil, where the first infection was reported, has led to reports of Guillain-Barre syndrome and pregnant women giving birth to babies with birth defects and poor pregnancy outcomes.
The W.H.O. says a “causal relationship” between Zika virus infection and birth malformations and neurological syndromes has not yet been established, but is strongly suspected.
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Brazil Deploys Army.
(Aedes aegypti mosquito, one of the transmitters of Zika virus. Photo by Rafaelgilo, via Wikipedia)
In Brazil, where the Zika outbreak has hit hardest, soldiers are being deployed to combat mosquitos, which transmit the disease.
The government says it will deploy 220,000 soldiers who will go from home to home handing out leaflets on how to avoid the spread of Zika, which has been linked to thousands of babies being born with underdeveloped brains, the BBC reported.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel alert on January 15 advising pregnant women to consider delaying travel to affected areas to avoid the possibility of being infected, according to NBC.
In the Central American country of El Salvador, the government has taken the drastic step of urging women to refrain from becoming pregnant until 2018
For more about Zika virus, click here.
FRIDAY FOTO: January 22, 2016
SeaBee Slog.
Ensign Frank Sysko, assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 3, exits a mud-filled trench during a jungle warfare training session at the Marine Corps Jungle Warfare Training Center (JWTC) in Okinawa, Japan.
The JWTC endurance course tests the Seabees will, stamina and the ability to work together as a team. A total of 49 Seabees from NMCB 3 attended the five-day course.
NMCB 3 deploys to several countries in the Pacific area for construction operations and humanitarian assistance projects.
To see more photos of this grueling exercise, click here and here.
AROUND AFRICA: Libya; Somalia
USSOCOM Eyes Libya.
Libya (CIA World Factbook)
The head of U.S. Special Forces Command says his organization is keeping tabs on goings on in Libya, as part of an effort to keep the Islamic State (ISIS) from growing more powerful there.
“There is concern about Libya,” Army General Joseph Votel told an industry-special ops conference in Washington this week. “In order to address this threat holistically, we do have to do activities and pursue objectives that allow us to tamp down on it,” Defense One reported Thursday. He added ISIS needs to be destroyed in areas where it is not wholly grown yet “so that we can bring that area back to legitimate local control.
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Beach Front Attack.
The East African terrorist group, Al Shabab, is claiming responsibility for an attack by suicide bombers on a hotel and restaurant in the capital, Mogadishu.
The Horn of Africa. Map courtesy of University of Pennsylvania African Studies Center
A car laden with explosives rammed into the Beach View Hotel in the capital’s Lido Beach area Thursday evening (January 21) . At least four armed men rushed the hotel shooting the place up., the Al Jazeera news service reported.
Another bomb struck a nearby restaurant, where several gun also attacked. Al Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack in a phone call to Al Jazeea.
Lido Beach, on the northern edge of Mogadishu, attracts thousands of mostly young Somalis looking to relax and enjoy the beach and surf, the BBC reported.
Al Shabab, which has links to al Qaeda, has carried out similar attacks in the past, the BBC said, noting the violent extremist group was driven from the capital in 2011, but still has a presence in large areas of Souther Somalia.
The group stormed an African Union military base in Souther Somalia last week, killing dozens of soldiers from Kenya.
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FRIDAY FOTO (January 15, 2016)
Cockpit Reach.
U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sergeant Corey Hook
U.S Air Force Major Steve Briones (left) and 1st Lieutenant Andrew Kim fly a an aerial refueling KC-135 Stratotanker over Turkey on January 6. Looks easy, doesn’t it?
Coalition forces fly daily missions to support Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. led air campaign against the so-called Islamic State terrorist group in Iraq and Syria.
AROUND AFRICA: Cameroon Bombing, Boko Haram [UPDATE]
Another Mosque Bombed.
There’s been another bombing in Cameroon being blamed on the Nigerian-based Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram.
At least 10 people were killed in an attack on a mosque by two female suicide bombers. The bombers struck during morning prayers, wounding about a dozen other people, the governor of the region tells Al Jazeera.
The attack in the town of Kolofata on Wednesday has been blamed on members of Boko Haram who reportedly crossed the border into Cameroon a few days earlier, Midjiyawa Bakari was quoted as saying. Kolofata, in Cameroon’s far north, near the border with Nigeria, has been repeatedly attacked by Boko Haram, according to Al Jazeera.
Wednesday’s blast was the third attack on a mosque in Cameroon in recent weeks.Another suicide attack blamed on Boko Haram in Cameroon last month killed at least seven people and wounded 30 others, officials said. In September, suicide bombers killed nine people in Kolofata and wounded 18.
Bakari, governor of the Far North Region of Cameroon, said Muslims should be on guard at mosques to help avert the kind of attacks that have plagued those attending morning prayers, according to the Voice of America website.
Bakari said he is asking the population to create vigilante groups to control access to mosques and places where people gather.
He said all prayer sessions in mosques should be divided into two, with the first group praying and the second group keeping watch. The groups would then switch. He also said unknown people should not be given access to mosques.
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New Kidnapped Girls Probe.
UPDATES to CORRECT Buhari previously led Nigeria in the early 1980s.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has approved a new investigation into one of Boko Haram’s most notorious crimes, the kidnapping of hundreds of teen-aged school girls in 2014.
The military has freed hundreds of Boko Haram captives in recent months, but none of the 200 girls taken from a school in the town of Chibok, according to the BBC.
The lack of progress in the attack and kidnapping that garnered worldwide attention, has sparked criticism of the government and army, which has been waging a war against the violent extremist Islamist group for six years. More than20,000 people have been killed in Nigeria and surrounding countries by Boko Haram attacks and bombings.
Buhari, a former Army commander and coup leader who ruled the country in the early 1980s before being democratically elected last year, fired the heads of Nigeria’s army, navy and air force in July 2015 as proof of his determination to have the girls found.
The new probe will be led by a panel appointed by the Nigeria’s national security adviser and will look into the circumstances of the kidnapping and the government’s response. The government says it does not know where the girls are or if they are alive, BBC reported.
AIR FORCE: Report Says Pentagon Rethinking Attack Plane’s Retirement
Warthog Reprieve.
A Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II flies over a 2014 joint Army-Air National Guard training exercise in Alaska in 2014. (U.S. Air Force photo by 2nd Lt. Michael Harrington)
According to a published report, the U.S. Air Force is halting immediate plans to retire the venerable A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jet — which is playing a major role in the U.S.-led bombing campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
The website, Defense One, reports Pentagon officials are saying plans to retire the heavily armored Cold War era jet known as the Warthog, have been put on hold. This policy shift will be laid out next month when the Pentagon submits its 2017 budget request to Congress, Pentagon officials told Defense One, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the spending plan before its official release.
The Air Force has been trying to eliminate the 40-year-old aircraft since 2014, because of budget constraints which threaten funding for newer aircraft like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the planned long range strike bomber. Officials say the A-10 — called the Warthog because of its stubby appearance, punishment-taking air frame and lethal armament — is obsolete and vulnerable to modern air defense missile systems and fifth generation fighter jets.
They also said multi-role fighters like the F-35 could handle the Warthog’s main mission: close air support of ground troops. That claim is strongly denied by Warthog advocates, who include former A-10 pilots, members of Congress and Army and Marine veterans who say they were saved from being overrun in Afghanistan by the A-10’s fearsome Gatling Gun.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Willard E. Grande II)
Supporters say high speed fighter jets cannot linger over a battle zone and provide covering fire for an extended period of time like the low and slow-flying Warthog has. The photo above shows the A-10’s big gun (like a fat cigar clenched in its tiger shark teeth) the seven-barrel, rotating 30 milimeter GAU cannon. The gun, with a firing rate of over 4,000-rounds per minute, enables “hogs” to support ground troops by taking out enemy tanks and armored vehicles with its armor-piercing shells.
SPECIAL OPERATIONS: SOCOM Leadership Changes; New Gunships Defense; SEALS and Women
Votel & Thomas.
The head of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), Army General Joseph Votel is likely to be the next chief of Central Command (CENTCOM), according to the Washington Post. And to replace Votel at SOCOM, the Post says Army Lieutenant General Raymond Thomas is the most likely candidate.
Votel, an Army Ranger and former head of the 75th Ranger Regiment, took over Tampa, Florida-based SOCOM as its 10th commander in 2014 from Admiral William McRaven, a Navy SEAL.
Word of Votel’s planned transfer to CENTCOM, was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Army Gen. and U.S. SOCOM commander Joseph Votel.
(U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Steve Cortez)
Special Operations Forces include Army Green Berets, Rangers and Special Ops aviators, Navy SEALS and Special Warfare Combatant-craft crews, Air Force Pararescue jumpers and combat air controllers, Marine Corps Corps critical skills operators and special operations combat services specialists.
Thomas, also an Army Ranger, is currently the head of Joint Special Operations Command, the SOCOM unit that oversees terrorist-hunting missions from North Africa to Afghanistan, according to the Post. CENTCOM, based in Tampa, Florida, is responsible for U.S. security interests an area consisting of 20 mostly Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries — Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.
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Radio Countermeasures.
U.S. Special Operations Command has ordered radio countermeasures equipment for its AC-130J and MC-130J gunship variants.
Under a $32 million contract with Northrop Grumman, the company’s Land and Avionics C4ISR division will supply radio frequency countermeasures (RFCM) for the planes, according to the C4ISR&Networks web site.
Jeff Palombo, Northrop Grumman division vice president and general manager, said N-G’s solution “is designed to detect and defeat not only current radio frequency threats, but also to have the flexibility to protect our warfighters as the threat evolves.” In a Northrop Grumman press release, Palombio said the solution “is built upon our high confidence aircraft protection systems of today, coupled with an open architecture approach that enables our offering to grow to a multi-spectral, multi-function capability for the future.”
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Mabus VS. SEALS
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is urging the Navy’s admirals to press forward with integrating women into the Special Ops Navy SEAL teams, over the concerns of Navy SEAL leaders.
Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUDs)
students participate in Surf Passage at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st
Class Michael Russell/Released)
As Naval Special Warfare hammers out a plan to start admitting women into their very rugged training, Mabus is urging Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson to forge ahead. Mabus rebutted some of the concerns Navy brass raised about roadblocks to integration, the Navy Times reported.
In the plan it submitted, NSW argued that allowing women to join direct ground combat units would not increase readiness, and could even distract from it, according to the memo obtained by Navy Times.
FRIDAY FOTO (January 8, 2016)
Fire Line/ Fire Light.
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class B. Siens
Sailors move transit toward a simulated fire during a general quarters drill in the hangar bay (note the jet with folded wing behind them) of aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75).
GQ drills prepare sailors to be at the highest state of readiness in the event of an emergency. The Truman Carrier Strike Group is deployed in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. led air campaign against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS and ISIL). The strike group is perfprming maritime security operations, and theater security cooperation in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations, about 2.5 million square miles of water area and includes the Arabian Gulf, Red Sea, Gulf of Oman and parts of the Indian Ocean.
Please click on the photo to enlarge the image.
SKILLS AND TRAINING: Marines Preparing for Future Actions in Coastal Mega Cities
Skyscraper Warfare?
Iraqi Special Forces Soldiers and U.S. Marines patrol streets in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004.
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Corporal James J. Vooris)
Back in September, we told what challenges Marine Corps planners and strategists think the corps will face later in the 21st Century. Much talk at the Modern Day Marine expo in Virginia focused on the kind of hybrid warfare seen in eastern Ukraine and the rise of teeming coastal mega cities around the world.
The future battlefield will probably look nothing like Afghanistan and Iraq, where Marines have been fighting for the last 14 years. Instead, urban areas near the sea and river deltas are expected to be the most likely environment, said Brigadier General Julian Dale Alford, commander of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab.
During a panel discussion at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Alford said the new environment will be “complex, congested, cluttered, contested, connected (with the cyber world), constrained and coastal.”
There’s plenty of evidence to back that conclusion.
A 2014 United Nations report noted that 54 percent of the world’s population already lives in urban areas — a proportion expected to increase to 66 percent by 2050. Projections show that urbanization, combined with the overall growth of the world’s population, could add another 2.5 billion people to urban populations by 2050, with close to 90 percent of the increase concentrated in Asia and Africa, according to the 2014 revision of the U.N.’s World Urbanization Prospects report.
Of today’s 28 mega-cities (with a population of 10 million or more) 16 are located in Asia, four in Latin America, three each in Africa and Europe, and two in North America. By 2030, the world is projected to have 41 mega-cities with 10 million inhabitants or more. Many of those cities are in the littoral areas close to the sea.”That’s where our Marines are going to fight. That’s where we’re going to have to operate,” Alford said back in September.
Speaking at an industry training, simulation and education conference in Orlando, Florida last month, Alford asked industry attendees to help develop ways to better prepare troops to fight in high-rise warfare, Defense News reported.
Nighttime view of Israel’s Urban Warfare Training Center.
(Israeli Defense Forces photo)
4GWAR 