Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri ( born June 19, 1951) is the current leader of al-Qaeda and a current or former member and senior official of Islamist organizations which have orchestrated and carried out attacks in North America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. In 2012, he called on Muslims to kidnap Western tourists in Muslim countries.
Since the September 11 attacks, U.S. State Department has offered a US$25 million reward for information leading to al-Zawahiri’s capture. He is under worldwide sanctions by the United Nations Security Council 1267 Committee as a member or affiliate of al-Qaeda.
On August 1, 2008, CBS News reported that it had obtained a copy of an intercepted letter dated July 29, 2008, from unnamed sources in Pakistan, which urgently requested a doctor to treat al-Zawahiri. The letter indicated that al-Zawahiri was critically injured in a US missile strike at Azam Warsak village in South Waziristan on July 28 that also reportedly killed al Qaeda explosives expert Abu Khabab al-Masri. Taliban Mehsud spokesman Maulvi Umar told the Associated Press on August 2, 2008, that the report of al-Zawahiri’s injury was false.
In early September 2008, Pakistan Army claimed that they “almost” captured al-Zawahiri after getting information that he and his wife were in the Mohmand Agency, in northwest Pakistan. After raiding the area, officials didn’t find him.
Likely location, Tribal Areas of Northwest Pakistan. An unsubstantiated photo recently released purportedly showing al-Zawahiri sticking his head out of a sewer hole in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar. It appears he is taking no chances and subsisting in the maggot infested slim-pits below Peshawar.
Reports have surfaced that al-Zawahiri’s three wives are threatening him with divorce if he doesn’t come up with better living conditions. One wife was quoted as saying: “the deplorable, stinky, raw sewage infested slim pits of the sewers deep below Peshawar is nowhere to bring up a family!”
The Quran and Hadith offer detailed descriptions of the methods of punishment in Jahannam (hell). The Quran states the punishments will be: the burning of skin, only to be replaced for reburning; garments of fire to be worn, and boiling water that will scald the skin and internal organs and faces; faces on fire; lips burnt off; backs on fire; from side to side; faces dragged along fire; bound in yokes then dragged through boiling water and fire, and wearing a pair of sandals on fire that will boil your brain.
In the Quran, the punishments of Jahannam (such as burning) are always followed with contrary protection of paradise (such as shade). Hell is said to be filled with venomous snakes/scorpions, the pain from whose venom will last 40 years. Ouch!!
Now the sick bastards are driving semi trucks into crowds of innocent civilians. Time to nuke these bastards. Okay that is a bit drastic. Fuel-air explosives and napalm anyone?
Isis have released a uncomfortable-looking training video in which they kick each other in the balls.
They also play leapfrog in the generally odd 14-minute propaganda film, which looks a lot stupider than we think they realise.
Some of the trainees are also seen boxing, firing guns and doing stomach crunches.
But yes, by far the weirdest part is when the recruits stand in a row and let their superior kick them in the groin.
ISIS members decided to show a softer side by putting their weapons down and taking part in a makeshift Jihad Olympics in July, reported Daily Mail.
Photographs capturing children as young as five taking part in the activities surfaced online yesterday (July 10).
These photographs were posted on Twitter by Terrormonitor – an account that reports forms of terror activity across the globe.
According to Daily Mail, the event is believed to have taken place in Tal Afar, Iraq – an area controlled by ISIS.
Those who participated were seen playing tug-of-war and musical chairs, reported Express.
THE 100-METRE DAESH Islamic State extremists try to show softer side by organising their own Jihadist Games
Winners were said to have walked away with a goodie bag full of sweets.
According to The Sun, the event was organised following an advertising drive by the extremists where ISIS members had spread the word using leaflets.
The Daily Mail added that the event might have been set up because statistics from the Obama administration recently showed that traffic of ISIS-related posts on social media went down by 45 per cent in the last two years.
And the Jihad Olympics is the terrorist group’s attempt at drawing in more people and portray them in a “normal” and “very different” image.
An anti-ISIS dissident was quoted by Express saying: “The games are very silly – running around chairs to music and tug-of-war. The ISIS fighters begin all the games but then get people to join in. Who would dare say no?
“It is a good idea to let the ISIS fighters win too. Who knows what might happen otherwise? Your head could be the next one in the dirt.”
A photo emerged of a strange event included in the ISIS Olympics: 500 meter goat-piggyback-bicycle-sprint.
Use the nukes boys, use the nukes! Put these clowns out of their misery.
The massacre in Orlando today was conducted by a deranged psychopath. It is becoming more clear that there were political and hateful motives behind the actions of this despicable butcher. The killer (Omar Mateen) was anti-Gay according to recent information, the attack was at a Gay nightclub. He also called 911 to spout something about being pro-ISIS. Mateen has Afghan parents but was born in the States.
His father said when he saw two homosexual males kissing he became outraged. Combine hatred of Gays with Muslim extremism and you have a toxic cocktail that did explode.
Many Muslims of status are extremely intolerant. They see their worldview as the only just and righteous path. And not only do they reject the tenants of other cultures, they despise those other cultures. It isn’t enough to have a negative outlook towards societies that are different, these intolerant Muslim intellectuals, educators, authors and leaders have an deranged hatred and loathing for these foreign Others. They especially hate the west, and specifically an intense hatred for the United States.
One such Muslim intellectual was Sayyid Qutb:
Sayyid Qutb (9 October 1906 – 29 August 1966) was an Egyptian author, educator, Islamic theorist, poet, and the leading member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1966 he was convicted of plotting the assassination of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and was executed by hanging.
Author of 24 books, including novels, literary arts critique and works on education, he is best known in the Muslim world for his work on what he believed to be the social and political role of Islam, particularly in his books Social Justice and Ma’alim fi al-Tariq (Milestones). His magnum opus, Fi Zilal al-Quran (In the Shade of the Qur’an), is a 30-volume commentary on the Quran.
During most of his life, Qutb’s inner circle mainly consisted of influential politicians, intellectuals, poets and literary figures, both of his age and of the preceding generation. By the mid-1940s, many of his writings were officially among the curricula of schools, colleges and universities.
Even though most of his observations and criticism were leveled at the Muslim world, Qutb is also known for his intense disapproval of the society and culture of the United States, which he saw as obsessed with materialism, violence, and sexual pleasures. Views on Qutb vary widely. He has been described by followers as a great thinker and martyr for Islam, while many Western observers see him as a key originator of Islamist ideology.[9] Others in the West believe Qutb is an inspiration for violent groups such as al-Qaeda. Today, his supporters are identified as Qutbists or “Qutbi” (by their opponents, not by themselves).
Though Islam gave him much peace and contentment, he suffered from respiratory and other health problems throughout his life and was known for “his introvertedness, isolation, depression and concern.” In appearance, he was “pale with sleepy eyes.” Qutb never married, in part because of his steadfast religious convictions. While the urban Egyptian society he lived in was becoming more Westernized, Qutb believed the Quran taught women that ‘Men are the managers of women’s affairs …’ Qutb lamented to his readers that he was never able to find a woman of sufficient “moral purity and discretion” and had to reconcile himself to bachelorhood.
Two Years in America
Time in the United States, pursuing further studies in educational administration, cemented some of Qutb’s views. Over two years, he worked and studied at Wilson Teachers’ College in Washington, D.C. (one of the precursors to today’s University of the District of Columbia), Colorado State College for Education in Greeley, and Stanford University. He visited the major cities of the United States and spent time in Europe on his journey home.
On his return to Egypt, Qutb published “The America that I Have Seen.” He was critical of things he had observed in the United States: its materialism, individual freedoms, economic system, racism, brutal boxing matches, “poor” haircuts, superficiality in conversations and friendships, restrictions on divorce, enthusiasm for sports, lack of artistic feeling, “animal-like” mixing of the sexes (which “went on even in churches”), and strong support for the new Israeli state. Hisham Sabrin, noted that:
As a brown person in Greeley, Colorado in the late 40s studying English he came across much prejudice. He was appalled by what he perceived as loose sexual openness of American men and women (a far cry from his home of Musha, Asyut). This American experience was for him a fine-tuning of his Islamic identity. He himself tells us on his boat trip over “Should I travel to America, and become flimsy, and ordinary, like those who are satisfied with idle talk and sleep. Or should I distinguish myself with values and spirit. Is there other than Islam that I should be steadfast to in its character and hold on to its instructions, in this life amidst deviant chaos, and the endless means of satisfying animalistic desires, pleasures, and awful sins? I wanted to be the latter man.”
Qutb noted with disapproval the sexuality of American women:
the American girl is well acquainted with her body’s seductive capacity. She knows it lies in the face, and in expressive eyes, and thirsty lips. She knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs—and she shows all this and does not hide it.
He also commented on the American taste in arts:
The American is primitive in his artistic taste, both in what he enjoys as art and in his own artistic works. “Jazz” music is his music of choice. This is that music that the Negroes invented to satisfy their primitive inclinations, as well as their desire to be noisy on the one hand and to excite bestial tendencies on the other. The American’s intoxication in “jazz” music does not reach its full completion until the music is accompanied by singing that is just as coarse and obnoxious as the music itself. Meanwhile, the noise of the instruments and the voices mounts, and it rings in the ears to an unbearable degree… The agitation of the multitude increases, and the voices of approval mount, and their palms ring out in vehement, continuous applause that all but deafens the ears.
This very influential man in the Muslim world was a bigot, racist, sexist and all around bitter religious fanatic. It is voices like this awful man that gets taught in Arab schools. Why can’t the positive attributes of Islam, tolerance, empathy, charity be the pillars of that religion? Why are they so intolerant and so very very angry?
At least 50 dead, 2016 – Omar Mateen opens fire on revellers at gay club in Orlando, Florida
32 dead, 2007 – Student Seung-Hui Cho massacres students at Virginia Tech university before killing himself
27 dead, 2012 – Adam Lanza kills 20 six- and seven-year-old children and six adults before killing himself at Sandy Hook, Connecticut
23 dead, 1991 – George Hennard drives through the wall of a cafe in Killeen, Texas, before opening fire and committing suicide
14 dead, 2015 – Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik open fire at a staff gathering in San Bernardino
13 dead, 2009 – Maj Nidal Malik Hasan opens fire at army base in Fort Hood, Texas
13 dead, 2009 – Jiverly Wong shoots people at New York immigrant centre before killing himself
13 dead, 1999 – Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill fellow students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado
The gunman, named by officials as Omar Mateen, was killed after taking hostages.
Another 53 people were injured in the shooting at the Pulse club.
It is the worst mass shooting in recent US history. Police described it as an act of terrorism.
Officials said the killings were likely to be ideologically motivated, though there was no information that the gunman was associated with a particular group.
It is believed that the suspect, who comes from the Florida town of Port St Lucie and is of Afghan descent, was not on a terrorism watch list, although he was currently being investigated for an unrelated criminal act.
It is hard to believe that it has been 5 years since the U.S. raid and killing of terrorist kingpin Osama Bin Laden. The terrorist that planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks and the African embassy bombings killing thousands of innocent civilians was finally cornered and killed by U.S. special operations forces.
Bin Laden wanted to engulf the world in an all-out religious war, Muslim fundamentalist armies against pretty well everybody else on the planet. It was a psychotic vision carried out by an apocalyptic despot who saw anybody who disagreed with his narrow outlook as apostates who should be exterminated. I don’t believe in hell, but in Bin Laden’s case I dearly hope there is a burning infinite pit of fire where the evil man will burn for eternity.
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Finding Bin Laden
BBC and ABC news.
American intelligence officials discovered the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden by tracking one of his couriers, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti as bin Laden was believed to have concealed his whereabouts from al-Qaeda foot soldiers or top commanders.
Identity of his courier
Identification of al-Qaeda couriers was an early priority for interrogators at CIA black sites and Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
By 2002 interrogators had heard uncorroborated claims about an al-Qaeda courier with the nom de guerre (or “pseudonym of war”) Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti (sometimes referred to as Sheikh Abu Ahmed, from Kuwait). In 2003 Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged operational chief of al-Qaeda, revealed under interrogation that he was acquainted with al-Kuwaiti but that he was not active in al-Qaeda.
In 2004 an al-Qaeda prisoner named Hassan Ghul told interrogators that al-Kuwaiti was close to bin Laden as well as Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Mohammed’s successor Abu Faraj al-Libi. Ghul further revealed that al-Kuwaiti had not been seen in some time, a fact which led U.S. officials to suspect he was traveling with bin Laden. When confronted with Ghul’s account, Khalid Sheik Mohammed maintained his original story. Abu Faraj al-Libi was captured in 2005 and transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006. He told CIA interrogators that bin Laden’s courier was a man named Maulawi Abd al-Khaliq Jan and denied knowing al-Kuwaiti. Because both Mohammed and al-Libi had minimized al-Kuwaiti’s importance, officials speculated that he was part of bin Laden’s inner circle.
In 2007 officials learned al-Kuwaiti’s real name, though they will not disclose the name nor how they learned it. Since the name Maulawi Abd al-Khaliq Jan appears in the JTF-GTMO detainee assessment for Abu Faraj al-Libi released by WikiLeaks on April 24, 2011, there was speculation that the US assault on the Abbottābad compound was expedited as a precaution. The CIA never found anyone named Maulawi Jan and concluded al-Libi made the name up.
A 2010 wiretap of another suspect picked up a conversation with al-Kuwaiti. CIA officials located al-Kuwaiti in August 2010 and followed him back to bin Laden’s Abbottābad compound. The courier and a relative (who was either a brother or a cousin) were killed in the May 2, 2011 raid. Afterward some locals identified the men as Pashtuns named Arshad and Tareq Khan. Arshad Khan was carrying an old, noncomputerized Pakistani identitification card which said he was from Khat Kuruna, a village near Charsadda in northwestern Pakistan. Pakistani officials have found no record of an Arshad Khan in that area and suspect the men were living under false identities.
The CIA used surveillance photos and intelligence reports to determine the identities of the inhabitants of the Abbottābad compound to which the courier was traveling. In September 2010, the CIA concluded that the compound was “custom-built to hide someone of significance,” and that bin Laden’s residence there was very likely. Officials surmised that he was living there with his youngest wife.
Google Earth maps show that the compound was not present in 2001, but did exist on images taken in 2005. Built in 2004, the three-story compound was located “at the end of a narrow dirt road”, 2.5 miles (4 km) northeast of the city center of Abbottābad. Abbottābad is about 100 miles from the Afghanistan border on the far eastern side of Pakistan (about 20 miles from India). The compound is 0.8 miles (1.3 km) southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA), Pakistan’s “West Point”. On a plot of land eight times larger than those of nearby houses, it was surrounded by 12-to-18-foot (3.7–5.5 m) concrete walls topped with barbed wire. There were two security gates, and the third-floor balcony had a seven-foot-high (2.1 m) privacy wall (which could hide the 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) bin Laden).
There was no Internet or telephone service connected to the compound. Its residents burned their trash, unlike their neighbors, who set their garbage out for collection. Local residents called the building the Waziristan Haveli (haveli is a term used in India and Pakistan that roughly translates to mansion).
Aerial view of compound.
The Raid on Bin Laden’s Compound
The raid was carried out by approximately two dozen heliborne U.S. Navy SEALs from the Red Squadron of the Joint Special Operations Command’s U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU), also known as SEAL Team Six. For legal reasons (namely that the U.S. was not at war with Pakistan), the military personnel assigned to the mission were temporarily transferred to the control of the civilian Central Intelligence Agency. The DEVGRU SEALs operated in two teams and were reportedly equipped with Heckler & Koch HK416 military assault rifles, Mark 48 machine guns used for fire support, FN SCAR-H STD Mk 17 battle rifles and H&K MP7A1 personal defense weapons (with attached Knight’s Armament QDSS-NT4 suppressors), Insight Technology AN/AVS-6 and GPVNG-18 (Ground Panoramic Night Vision Goggles) L-3 night-vision goggles, body armor and sidearms such as SIG Sauer P226R Navy MK25 and H&K Mark 23 Mod 0.
According to The New York Times, a total of “79 commandos and a dog” were involved in the raid. The military working dog was a Belgian Malinois named Cairo. According to one report, the dog was tasked with tracking “anyone who tried to escape and to alert SEALs to any approaching Pakistani security forces”. The dog was to be used to help deter any Pakistani ground response to the raid and to help look for any hidden rooms or hidden doors in the compound. Additional personnel on the mission included a language interpreter, the dog handler, helicopter pilots, “tactical signals, intelligence collectors, and navigators using highly classified hyperspectral imagers”.
Navy Seals
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The SEALs flew into Pakistan from a staging base in the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan after originating at Bagram Air Base in northeastern Afghanistan. The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), a U.S. Army Special Operations Command unit known as the “Night Stalkers”, provided the two modified Black Hawk helicopters that were used for the raid itself, as well as the much larger Chinook heavy-lift helicopters that were employed as backups.
The Black Hawks appear to have been never-before-publicly-seen “stealth” versions of the helicopter that fly more quietly while being harder to detect on radar than conventional models; due to the weight of the extra stealth equipment on the Black Hawks, cargo was “calculated to the ounce, with the weather factored in.”
Stealth Blackhawk top, conventional model bottom
Stealth Version
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The Chinooks kept on standby were on the ground “in a deserted area roughly two-thirds of the way” from Jalalabad to Abbottabad, with two additional SEAL teams consisting of approximately 24 DEVGRU operators for a “quick reaction force” (QRF). The Chinooks were equipped with 7.62mm GAU-17/A miniguns and GAU-21/B .50-caliber machine guns and extra fuel for the Black Hawks. Their mission was to interdict any Pakistani military attempts to interfere with the raid. Other Chinooks, holding 25 more SEALs from DEVGRU, were stationed just across the border in Afghanistan in case reinforcements were needed during the raid.
The 160th SOAR helicopters were supported by multiple other aircraft, including fixed-wing fighter jets and drones. According to CNN, “the Air Force had a full team of combat search-and-rescue helicopters available”.
The raid was scheduled for a time with little moonlight so the helicopters could enter Pakistan “low to the ground and undetected”. The helicopters used hilly terrain and nap-of-the-earth techniques to reach the compound without appearing on radar and alerting the Pakistani military. The flight from Jalalabad to Abbottabad took about 90 minutes.
According to the mission plan, the first helicopter would hover over the compound’s yard while its full team of SEALs fast-roped to the ground. At the same time, the second helicopter would fly to the northeast corner of the compound and deploy the interpreter, the dog and handler, and four SEALs to secure the perimeter. The team in the courtyard was to enter the house from the ground floor.
As they hovered above the target, however, the first helicopter experienced a hazardous airflow condition known as a vortex ring state. This was aggravated by higher than expected air temperature (“a so-called ‘hot and high’ environment”) and the high compound walls, which stopped the rotor downwash from diffusing. The helicopter’s tail grazed one of the compound’s walls, damaging its tail rotor, and the helicopter rolled onto its side. The pilot quickly buried the aircraft’s nose to keep it from tipping over. None of the SEALs, crew and pilots on the helicopter were seriously injured in the soft crash landing, which ended with it pitched at a 45-degree angle resting against the wall. The other helicopter landed outside the compound and the SEALs scaled the walls to get inside. The SEALs advanced into the house, breaching walls and doors with explosives.
The Killing of Bin Laden
The SEALs encountered the residents in the compound’s guest house, in the main building on the first floor where two adult males lived, and on the second and third floors where bin Laden lived with his family. The second and third floors were the last section of the compound to be cleared. There were reportedly “small knots of children … on every level, including the balcony of bin Laden’s room”.
Osama bin Laden was killed in the raid, and initial versions said three other men and a woman were killed as well: bin Laden’s adult son Khalid, bin Laden’s courier (Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti), al-Kuwaiti’s brother Abrar, and Abrar’s wife Bushra.
In the earlier versions, Al-Kuwaiti is said to have opened fire on the first team of SEALs with an AK-47 from behind the guesthouse door, lightly injuring a SEAL with bullet fragments. A short firefight took place between al-Kuwaiti and the SEALs, in which al-Kuwaiti was killed. His wife Mariam was allegedly shot and wounded in the right shoulder. The courier’s male relative Abrar was then said to have been shot and killed by the SEALs’ second team on the first floor of the main house as shots had already been fired and the SEALs thought that he was armed (this was later confirmed to be true in the official report). A woman near him, later identified as Abrar’s wife Bushra, was, in this version, also shot and killed. Bin Laden’s young adult son is said to have encountered the SEALs on the staircase of the main house, and to have been shot and killed by the second team. An unnamed U.S. senior defense official stated that only one of the five people killed, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, was armed. The interior of the house was pitch dark, because CIA operatives had cut the power to the neighborhood. However, the SEALs wore night vision goggles.
The SEALs encountered bin Laden on the third floor of the main building. Bin Laden was “wearing the local loose-fitting tunic and pants known as a kurta paijama“, which were later found to have €500 and two phone numbers sewn into the fabric.
Bin Laden peered through his bedroom door at the Americans advancing up the stairs, and then retreated into the room as the lead SEAL fired a shot at him, which either missed or hit him in the side. Robert O’Neill, who later publicly identified himself as the SEAL who shot bin Laden, rolled through the door and confronted bin Laden inside the bedroom. Seymour Hersh reports that, according to his sources, Bin Laden was found cowering and shot dead.
O’Neill states that bin Laden was standing behind a woman with his hands on her shoulders, pushing her forward. O’Neill immediately shot bin Laden twice in the forehead, then once more as bin Laden crumpled to the floor. Matt Bissonnette, who entered the room at about the same time, also claims to have fired shots into bin Laden’s fallen body. Simultaneously, in these versions, one of bin Laden’s wives, Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah is said to have screamed at the SEALs in Arabic and motioned as if she were about to charge. The lead SEAL shot her in the leg, then grabbed both women and shoved them aside. The weapon used to kill bin Laden was a HK416 allegedly using 5.56mm NATO 77-grain OTM (open-tip match) rounds made by Black Hills Ammunition. The SEAL team leader radioed, “For God and country—Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo”, and then, after being prompted by McRaven for confirmation, “Geronimo E.K.I.A.” (enemy killed in action). Watching the operation in the White House Situation Room, Obama said, “We got him.”
There were, in these reports, said to be two weapons near bin Laden in his room, including an AKS-74U carbine and a Russian-made Makarov pistol, but according to his wife Amal, he was shot before he could reach his AKS-74U. According to the Associated Press, the guns were on a shelf next to the door and the SEALs did not see them until they were photographing the body.
As the SEALs encountered women and children during the raid, they restrained them with plastic handcuffs or zip ties. After the raid was over, U.S. forces moved the surviving residents outside “for Pakistani forces to discover”. The injured Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah continued to harangue the raiders in Arabic. Bin Laden’s 12-year-old daughter Safia was allegedly struck in her foot or ankle by a piece of flying debris.
While bin Laden’s body was taken by U.S. forces, the bodies of the four others killed in the raid were left behind at the compound and later taken into Pakistani custody.
And so ended a strange and sad saga in the history of the world. If one factors in Bush’s invasion of Iraq (purportedly spurred on by the 9/11 attacks) and the deaths that were caused by that invasion, some estimates put Iraqi dead at 250,000 or more, and the Afghanistan war. Bin Laden is directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of over half a million lives.
And his legacy lives on with the emergence of ISIS. Another psychotic apocalyptic extreme Muslim movement that would not have emerged if not for Bush’s mega-blunder in Iraq.
U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers arrived at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, on Saturday joining Operation Inherent Resolve, the American-led campaign against the Islamic State group.
The deployment marks the first time the Air Force will use the Cold War-era warplanes — from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana — in the counter-ISIS fight in Iraq and Syria. The service did not disclose the exact number of bombers it deployed.
“The B-52 will provide the coalition continued precision and deliver desired airpower effects,” Lt. Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., commander of U.S. Air Forces Central Command and Combined Forces Air Component, said in a release.
“As a multi-role platform, the B-52 offers diverse capabilities, including delivery of precision weapons and the flexibility and endurance needed to support the combatant commander’s priorities and strengthen the coalition team.”
In March, Air Force officials hinted that the aircraft, affectionately known as the “Big Ugly Fat Fellows,” would replace the B-1 Lancers, which returned in January.
“There have been recent infrastructure improvements that now allow the necessary support to deploy the B-52 in theater,” Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said at an Air Force briefing on March 7.
The last time B-52s were in theater, they deployed to Jordan for Exercise Eager Lion, a CENTCOM-led exercise in May 2015, the release said. The aircraft last flew operationally in 2006 during Operation Enduring Freedom; BUFFs were also based in Saudi Arabia supporting Operation Desert Storm.
“We’re going to keep the B-52 around. It provides some missions for us that are hard to replicate, primarily the range and payload the airplane provides,” Lt. Gen. James “Mike” Holmes, the deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements, told Air Force Times on Feb. 18.
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