This is interesting. Debka says the War in Iraq has already begun...just quietly, "salami-style". And they did use Prince Sultan AFB, now isn't that especially interesting?
First US Military Steps
In the past week, once those preparations were in place, the United States carried out two military operations:
1. Tuesday August 6, at 0800 hours Middle East time, US and British air bombers went into action and destroyed the Iraqi air command and control center at al-Nukhaib in the desert between Iraq and Saudi Arabia. The center contained advanced fiber optic networks recently installed by Chinese companies. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources say the raid made military history. For the first time, the US air force used new precision-guided bombs capable of locating and destroying fiber optic systems. The existence of such weaponry was hitherto unknown.
Following the destruction of the facility, about 260 miles (415 kilometers), southwest of Baghdad, waves of US warplanes swept in from the Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia and from US aircraft carriers in the Gulf and flew over the Iraqi capital.
The Iraqi air force and anti-aircraft system held their fire on orders from above. This deep air penetration told the Americans that the early warning radar system protecting Baghdad and its environs from intrusion by enemy aircraft and missiles was inactive.
2. Two days later, on Wednesday night, August 8, Turkey executed its first major military assault inside Iraq. DEBKAfile’s military sources learn from Turkish and Kurdish informants that helicopters under US, British and Turkish warplane escort flew Turkish commandos to an operation for seizing the critical Bamerni airport in northern Iraq. This airport, just outside the Kurdish region, lies 50 miles north of the big Iraqi oil cities of the north, Kirkuk and Mosul. With the Turkish commandos was a group of US special forces officers and men. Bamerni airport was captured after a brief battle in which a unit of Iraqi armored defenders was destroyed, opening the airport for giant American and Turkish transports to deliver engineering units, heavy machinery and electronic support equipment, which were put to work at once on enlarging the field and widening its landing strips.
The American unit, reinforced, went on to capture two small Iraqi military airfields nearby.
The Turkish expeditionary force in northern Iraq now numbers some 5,000 men, in addition to Turkish air force contingents.
DEBKAfile’s military experts explain that with Bamerni airport and the two additional airfields the Americans have acquired full control of the skies over the two oil cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, as well as over the Syrian-Iraqi railroad, which they can now cut off by aerial bombardment. A prime strategic asset, this railroad is Saddam’s back door for taking delivery of his illegal overseas arms purchases, which are ferried from Syrian ports to Baghdad by the Syrian-Iraqi railway. On the return journey, the same railway carries illegal Iraqi oil exports, over and above the quantities allowed under UN sanctions, out to market. The Iraqi war effort and the Syrian treasury depend heavily on the revenues accruing from these smuggled oil sales.
The battle over this airfield was in fact the first important face-to-face engagement between a US-led invasion force and Iraqi troops. It was carried out seven hours before the Iraqi ruler delivered his televised speech to the nation, on the 14th anniversary of the bloody eight-year Iraq-Iran war. In that speech, Saddam threatened American troops going to war against Iraq that they would return home in coffins.
debka.com |
