Iraqi troops seize airfield near Mosul; Dispatches from Farnsborough; Welcome to the era of lethal police robots; Violence in South Sudan kills nearly 300; and a bit more.
Iraqi troops seized a key airfield 50 miles south of Mosul on Saturday, and U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said this morning from Baghdad that the counter-ISIS coalition is wasting no time using the base as a staging area and projection point in the wider fight to take Mosul back from ISIS. Granted, the coalition is operating on Iraq time, so “it’s not clear when U.S. advisers would begin accompanying the battalions closer to the battlefront. But it could be in the coming weeks and months,” the Associated Press reports this morning from Baghdad after “U.S. officials said a team of American troops went into Qayara for a quick site assessment Sunday and left.”
Carter: “The point of seizing that (Qayara) airfield is to be able to establish a logistics and air hub in the immediate vicinity of Mosul. So, there will be U.S. logistics support.”
And that logistics support is expected to pave the way for U.S. advisers accompanying Iraqi battalions closer to the fight against ISIS “as those units begin to encircle the key northern city,” writes AP.
Carter is in Iraq to meet with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and his defense chief, Khalid al-Obeidi, as well as Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the top U.S. military commander for the Islamic State fight, to talk next steps—with a particular focus on Mosul.
In Syria, regions around Aleppo remain hot as rebels push back against regime troops after a key route was severed late last week. More than 300 rebel artillery shells have fallen this morning on the western portion of Aleppo, where regime sympathizers are believed to be holed up; and Syrian allied warplanes have returned fire with numerous strikes from above, Reuters reports, adding all of this “violence erupted during a 72-hour nationwide ceasefire announced by the Syrian army.”
The Assad regime is being sued by the family of U.S. journalist Marie Colvin, who was killed in the Syrian city of Homs back in 2012. “The suit alleges the attack was part of a plan orchestrated at the highest levels of the Syrian government to silence local and international media ‘as part of its effort to crush political opposition.’ The lawsuit included as evidence a copy of an August 2011 fax which it alleges was sent from Syria's National Security Bureau instructing security bodies to launch military and intelligence campaigns against 'those who tarnish the image of Syria in foreign media and international organizations,’” Reuters reports.
A former colleague of Colvin, Paul Wood, penned a lengthy backgrounder on the attack and the lawsuit, wrapped in a remembrance of Colvin’s work, over at The Daily Beast this weekend. Worth the click, here.
Reminder: the U.S. is fighting the Islamic State in Afghanistan, “confining the group to a handful of districts near the Pakistan border,” U.S. and Afghan military officials told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday. “Despite the U.S. and Afghan progress, the group continues to exert control over parts of Achin district, its main base in the east, reflecting the difficulty in dislodging the militants from the mountainous area close to the border with Pakistan. In other districts including Kot, the group has made a comeback in recent weeks. Last week, an Islamic State suicide bomber attacked the leader of a militia backed by the Afghan intelligence agency, in a sign the group remains resilient despite losses.”
The where and how much of IS is influence in eastern Afghanistan: “Both [Lt. Gen Mohammad Waziri, commander of the Afghanistan National Army’s 201st Corps] and U.S. military officials insisted Islamic State didn’t control districts in Nangarhar, but merely were operating in those districts. But Gen. Waziri said the group is well-funded and maintains strong capabilities. The group is now confined to a limited presence in a few districts, including Achin and Kot, he added. Locals, however, said Islamic State has continued to maintain a presence in several districts there.” Read the rest, here.
We’re about 24 hours away from the Hague arbitration court ruling filed by the Philippines in protest of China’s expansion in the South China Sea. And Beijing is more than a little anxious. “China has spared no effort to denounce the proceedings as unlawful, publishing state media commentaries and deploying senior military officers, current and former top officials and academics to relentlessly convey Beijing’s opposition,” writes the AP. “On Monday, the day before the verdict, the overseas edition of the ruling Communist Party's mouthpiece, the People's Daily, urged the Philippines to return to talks with China and the U.S. to stay out of the dispute.”
Ash Carter reportedly rang his Philippine counterpart, Delfin Lorenzana, this morning “to reaffirm the strength of their countries’ decades-long treaty alliance. They discussed the arbitration issue ‘and agreed to consult closely as the ruling is announced,’” according to a statement issued by the Philippine Department of National Defense.
The stakes: “Experts say the outcome of the dispute could provide ammunition for other countries involved in disputes with China. Six governments have overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea - China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei. In addition, China’s nine-dash line overlaps waters that are part of Indonesia's internationally recognized exclusive economic zone.” More in AP’s preview, here.
Surprise, surprise: North Korea is not happy over that THAAD anti-missile system the U.S. is installing in South Korea. And this morning, Pyongyang ratcheted up its anti-U.S. rhetoric, announcing from here forward, “All matters related to the United States, including the handling of American citizens detained by Pyongyang, will be conducted under [North Korean] ‘wartime law,’” according to state-run KCNA news, Reuters reports. The North also vowed a “physical response” to the system, as well as an announcement it has cut “an intermittent point of contact between the North and the United States” known as the New York channel. More here.
From Defense One
Military robotics makers see a future for armed police robots. As military-grade robotics get cheaper and more capable, someone will arm them and put them on American streets, robot makers tell Tech Editor Patrick Tucker. Read that, here.
How the myth of an EU army bolstered the Brexit vote. Anti-Europe leaders successfully turned the idea of a less-than-NATO rapid response force into political red herring, Tucker writes.
The era of lethal police robots has arrived, The Atlantic’s David Graham reported Friday after Dallas Police used a remote-controlled robot to kill the sniper in last week’s attack, opening questions about the way law enforcement agencies will use new technologies.
Welcome to Monday’s edition of The D Brief by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. On this day in 1962, the Telstar I satellite bounced the first live transatlantic TV transmission to American viewers from France via an antenna in Maine—marking the day when NASA says “information went global.” Send your friends this link: http://get.defenseone.com/d-brief/. And let us know your news: the-d-brief@defenseone.com.
China lost its third troop to fighting in South Sudan this weekend, WSJ reported Sunday. “Both of the Chinese peacekeepers were aboard an armored vehicle that was hit by a shell as it carried U.N. troops to a refugee camp, according to state media reports. One infantryman died on the spot and six others were injured in the incident, which took place in the South Sudan capital of Juba on Sunday evening local time, China’s defense ministry said in a short statement posted to its official feed on the Weibo social-media site.”
The death of the three Chinese soldiers, “coming so close together, illustrate the increased risks faced by Chinese peacekeeping troops—particularly in volatile regions like Sudan and South Sudan—where Beijing has economic interests to defend. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, the military has shifted from contributing noncombat personnel like engineers and medics to infantry and other combat units in part as a way to get the soldiers more experience with real-life combat situations.”
Fighting in Juba, South Sudan, erupted Thursday “when troops loyal to [President Salva Kiir] and soldiers backing former rebel leader [and Vice-President Riek Machar] first clashed, raising fears of a slide back to a full-blown conflict after a two-year civil war,” Reuters reports.
This morning fighting continues while the death toll approaches nearly 300 in four days.
The AP has a backgrounder on South Sudan tensions you can check out over here.
Elsewhere in Africa, a car bomb from al-Shebab militants killed 10 soldiers 30 miles southwest of Mogadishu. The attack “allowed the fighters to infiltrate the Lanta Buro base in Lower Shabelle region, a military officer, Said Mohamed Adawe, told The Associated Press. ‘They are still in control of the base,’” a senior Somali military official added.
Raytheon expects sales bump. In an interview with Defense One Global Business Editor Marcus Weisgerber, Raytheon Chairman and Chief Executive Thomas Kennedy said the American-led airstrike campaign against the Islamic State group and the global demand for missile defenses have Raytheon positioned for solid growth in 2016. “A large part of that is the missile growth [but] it’s across all of our businesses,” Kennedy said. “All of our businesses are growing.” More here.
No Brexit for Boeing. The company inked a more-than-$5 billion deal with the U.K. Defense Ministry for nine P-8 submarine hunting surveillance planes and 50 Apache attack helicopters. Both aircraft are made by Boeing, which employs more than 2,000 people in the U.K. The deal was announced as the biennial Farnborough Air Show began under cloudy skies and damp, chilly breeze Monday morning. It’s the largest deal announced since the U.K. voted to leave the European Union, sending the global stocks plummeting and the pound to a 30-year low. More here.
Spotted: An F-35 Joint Strike Fighter flew in the middle of a formation with the Red Arrows, the Royal Air Force acrobatic team (akin to the American Thunderbirds or Blue Angels).
New F-35 cost-cutting plan announced. From Defense News: “Lockheed Martin on Monday unveiled a slate of new affordability initiatives meant to slash F-35 procurement and sustainment costs by billions of dollars. The company will invest up to $170 million over the next two years to extend its existing ‘Blueprint for Affordability’ measure, it announced at Farnborough International Airshow.” More here.
Pentagon makes commitment to industry. Frank Kendall, the Defense Department’s undersecretary for acquisition, reiterated previous support for American defense firms and a commitment to attend international arms shows. “We’re going to continue to support U.S. industry in particular,” Kendall said during a press conference in London on Sunday.
Lastly today—and in case you missed it—just days before the Dallas Police Department raised eyebrows with the first known use of a bomb-carrying robot to kill an attacker, the Defense Department said it needed more money to fight ISIS for doing just that (and more): using small commercial drones as contemporary kamikaze weapons and to surveil coalition troops in the Iraq-Syria battlespace, Bloomberg reported. “‘[A]fter the Iraqi forces began occupying Makhmour in Ninevah Province, a video surfaced’ on an Islamic State web site ‘showing forces on the ground there, demonstrating they were using the footage in both reconnaissance and propaganda roles,’” Army Colonel Chris Garver, the Defense Department’s top spokesman in Iraq, told Bloomberg. “The commercial drones used by Islamic State have weighed about 50 pounds or less,” David Small, spokesman for the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Agency, said without providing “details on the number of attacks or resulting casualties.” More on all that, here.