An airport under construction in Iraq’s central Karbala province was hit in a US bombing raid on militias, with photos showing debris scattered across the site. The US said earlier the strikes were “precise” and defensive.

Photos have emerged online showing the Karbala International Airport, expected to be Iraq’s largest airport once completed, having been crippled by the US airstrike on Thursday night.

The strike shattered windows in what appears to be one of the airport’s main buildings, and debris could be seen scattered on the ground.

An airport official confirmed to Reuters that the facility sustained a direct hit from US forces.

 

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New reports out of the Middle East allege that the use of the US’ sword-carrying Hellfire R9-X “ninja bomb” has increased in recent weeks, and that it was most recently used in a Monday attack on alleged terrorists in northern Syria. 

The Jerusalem Post reported on Tuesday that an R9-X missile struck a small, white truck the day prior and killed several individuals near Azaz, Syria.

Images uploaded to social media by independent outlet Islamic World News showed what is believed to be the remaining wreckage from the scene.

Though little is known about the Monday strike, the Jerusalem Post noted that early reports have identified one of the strike victims as Shuja’a Muhammad, who was reportedly born in 1987. Members of the White Helmets were observed picking up parts of the corpse, according to the Post.

At the same time, the outlet highlighted that “people sometimes use fake identification,” meaning the ID retrieved from the scene may not provide the actual name of one of the people who was killed.

Despite its name, the so-called “ninja bomb” does not come equipped with explosives, but instead six steel, sword-like blades that have the ability to slice through targets. The precision missile also cuts down on collateral damage - which could explain its increased use in the Middle East.

“The less lethal the weapon the smaller the area that is exposed to danger, even if the weapon fails to guide properly,” retired Air Marshal Greg Bagwell, a former UK Royal Air Force deputy commander, explained to The Telegraph last month.

“As you shrink that envelope there is the temptation to take shots in a situation you would not have been able to with a more lethal weapon.”

The Jerusalem Post noted that strikes using the “ninja bomb” occurred on June 15, June 20 and on July 18. Video footage uploaded to social media provides a look at the precision of a strike in Syria last month that killed commanders Qassam ul-Urdini and Bilal al-Sanaani of the al-Qaeda-linked group known as Horas al-Din.

 

 

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https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/202007211079947202-photos-us-made-ninja-bomb-reportedly-used-again-in-strike-on-northern-syria-/

 

 

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by PHILIP GIRALDI

 

The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft think tank launched last November. It has recently issued a roughly 15,000 word manifesto entitled “Ending America’s Misguided Policy of Middle East Domination.” For those who would find ten thousand words plus intimidating, the paper includes a more digestible 1,221 word executive summary which fairly accurately summarizes the document’s conclusions.

I have written about Quincy before, here and here and here. In short, while I would applaud a restrained foreign policy, particularly for the Middle East, I find Quincy unconvincing. It claims to promote “ideas that move U.S. foreign policy away from endless war and toward vigorous diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace” and further takes some pride in being non-partisan, though bipartisan might be a better description. To be sure, Quincy’s two major donors have been reported to be the highly controversial George Soros on the globalist left and the equally notorious Koch Foundation on the libertarian-lite right.

Soros in particular has been much in the news of late given his alleged propensity to fund and otherwise support groups and organizations that many would regard as conspiratorial or even violently radical, to include black lives matter and Antifa. Soros, a Hungarian Jew who is now a U.S. citizen, has been especially engaged in interventions to bring about “regime change” through “democracy movements” in Eastern Europe and he has exhibited a particularly animosity towards Russia, making one suspect that his cash will influence what Quincy is allowed to say about the Kremlin.

The new Quincy report was co-authored by Paul Pillar, Andrew Bacevich, Trita Parsi and Annelle Sheline. I am not familiar with Sheline’s work, but Pillar, Bacevich and Parsi are all highly respectable and very knowledgeable about both national security and developments in the Middle East. To be sure, the paper includes a lot of useful information and insights into how various policies have evolved plus some very positive suggestions for extricating the U.S. from the Asian quagmire. But one should also accept that what is included in its agenda and how it is framed might be shaped by outside considerations, to include how Quincy is funded. It is not so much a matter of what the contributors write, but rather how it is spun and what is either minimized or not even addressed at all.

The ability to write about the Middle East in an even-handed “realistic” fashion, which is what the new article seeks to do, is based on the premise that there is equivalency among all of the players involved. That is, of course, nonsense. Many observers would note that the United States currently is in the Middle East and playing the role that it does mostly due to the immense power of Israel and its domestic lobby operating largely out of Washington and New York City.

Israel’s ability to make American presidents and the U.S. Congress do what it wishes is clearly visible wherever one chooses to look. The American people have gained nothing from giving Israel hundreds of billions of dollars and an endless supply of weapons while also looking the other way as Israel stole nuclear secrets and spied on the U.S. more than any other “friendly” country. What did the U.S. gain in recently moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem, in allowing Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the Golan Heights, in approving the bombing of Syria and Iran, or in permitting the systematic Israeli dehumanizing of the Palestinians?

A recent article by Professor Bacevich entitled “President Trump, Please End the American Era in the Middle East” appears to a precursor study to the current longer Quincy report. It is a good example of how self-censorship over Israel by authors works. The article particularly focused on the foreign policy pronouncements of Bret Stephens, the resident neocon who writes for The New York Times. Stephens, per Bacevich, has been urging constant war in the Middle East and worrying lest “we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the American era in the Middle East.” Bacevich correctly described how “in the Middle East, the military power of the United States has played a large part in exacerbating problems rather than contributing to their solution.”

The overall message is sound, but in this case, it is interesting to note what Bacevich left out rather than what he included. He cited Iran seven times as well as Saudi Arabia, but, strangely enough, he never mentioned Israel at all, which a number of commenters on the piece noted. It rather suggests that there is a line that Bacevich is reluctant to cross. The omission is particularly odd as Israel is absolutely central to and might even be described as driving American policy in the Middle East and Bret Stephens, whom Bacevich excoriates, is a notable Israel-firster who once worked as the editor of the Jerusalem Post.

 

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https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/quincy-rides-again/

 

 

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