by Dan Friedman, nydailynews September 23, 2014 Before, it was the Islamic State’s command and control center in Syria. Now it’s a charred ruin crushed by bombs delivered with ruthless precision — and for the first time ever — by an F-22 fighter plane. Before, it was a finance center that murderous ISIS militants used to move blood money around. Now a whole corner of the building is missing — reduced to rubble with a pinpoint strike by a Tomahawk cruise missile. The Pentagon released photos Tuesday of the destruction the U.S.-led airstrikes visited on ISIS’ stronghold in the occupied Syrian city of Raqqa. President Obama called the overnight aerial assaults — a three-wave attack supported by Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — a “powerful message to the world.” “The strength of this coalition makes it clear to the world that this is not America’s fight alone,” Obama said before leaving Washington for the United Nations General Assembly meeting. “We’re going to do what’s necessary to take the fight to this terrorist group, for the security of the country and the region and for the entire world.” Obama is expected to talk about the ISIS threat in his address Wednesday to the U.N. General Assembly. Rear Admiral John Kirby warned ISIS that this was just a taste of the hell to come. “I can tell you that last nights strikes were only the beginning,” said Kirby, who called the raids “very successful.” In the wake of the attacks, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced that Turkey — a big player in the war-torn region — was joining the coalition against ISIS and “will be very engaged on the front lines of this effort.” That was confirmed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. ISIS responded to the airstrikes with more defiance. The group posted a new video online in which its coerced spokesman, British hostage John Cantlie, warned the U.S. and its allies that they were embarking on “Gulf War III.” “Not since Vietnam have we witnessed such a potential mess in the making,” he was heard saying. Cantlie was captured in August 2013 with U.S. reporter James Foley, whose beheading by an ISIS butcher last month horrified the world when it was posted online. Coalition forces also launched airstrikes against Khorasan, an Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group operating in the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Idib. Some 30 fighters were killed along with eight civilians, officials said. Khorasan was targeted because it was plotting a fresh wave of terrorist attacks and was actively recruiting jihadists who hold passports from Western nations, administration officials said. “The Khorasan Group is a group of extremists that is comprised of a number of individuals who weve been tracking for a long time,” said White House spokesman Ben Rhodes. “It includes some former Al Qaeda operatives; core Al Qaeda operatives from Afghanistan and Pakistan who made their way to Syria remain in our view affiliated with Al Qaeda.” CNN reported that Abu Yousef al-Turki, leader of another Al Qaeda offshoot called the al-Nusra Front, was also killed. But that was not officially confirmed. Meanwhile, the French released video footage and photos of the ISIS munitions and fuel depot in Iraq they destroyed last week. ISIS, a fanatical Sunni Muslim militant organization determined to carve out a caliphate, poses a huge threat to the Arab monarchies in the region as well as to Shiite Iran. It has slaughtered thousands of “infidels” while gobbling up large swaths of Iraqi and Syrian territory. Six weeks of U.S. air attacks ordered by Obama have stymied the ISIS advance in Iraq, although the militants continue to hold a huge chuck of that country. Monday marked the first attacks on ISIS positions in Syria and that country’s despotic leader, President Bashar Assad, was warned to stay out of it. “We warned Syria not to engage U.S. aircraft,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. “We did not request the regimes permission. We did not coordinate our actions with the Syrian government.” Crushing ISIS would be a big boost to Assad, who has been waging a brutal fight against Syrian rebels determined to oust him. The Obama administration also wants Assad gone and is loath to do anything that might help him stay in power. But right now ISIS is the biggest threat to the region. The Iranians, with whom the U.S. has been at odds for more than three decades, also support the effort against ISIS. “They torture and decapitate,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said. The Khorasan Group was the first to feel America’s wrath Monday. In the first wave, some 40 Tomahawk missiles were fired from two U.S. ships fired from the Red Sea — the USS Philippine Sea and the USS Arleigh Burke — on Monday at their terror nests in Aleppo and Ibid. Thirty minutes later, the F-22’s along with F-15E Strike Eagle jets, B1 bombers and drones began barraging ISIS positions up in Raqqa. Americas Arab allies took part in the second wave of attacks, said Lt. Gen. William Mayville Jr., another Pentagon spokesman. He did not go into detail. A Syrian activist group reported that dozens of ISIS fighters were killed, along with at least 10 civilians. Those numbers were not confirmed by U.S. officials. A little after 7 a.m. Tuesday, F-18 and F-16 fighters planes from the USS George H.W. Bush, an aircraft carrier patrolling the Persian Gulf, attacked ISIS training camps and combat vehicles in eastern Syria, Mayville said. Once again, they were joined by the Arab air forces, Mayville said. In total, there were 50 attacks that killed dozens of ISIS fighters, the Pentagon said. “You are seeing the beginning of the sustained campaign and strikes like this can be expected,” Mayville said. The raids on Syria marked the combat debut of the F-22, one of the most expensive fighter planes ever made and a weapon policymakers had been reluctant to unleash until now. It was chosen, Air Force officials said, because it is able to elude Syria’s sophisticated air defenses and can deliver a 1000-pound guided bomb to a target 15 miles away. Pentagon officials did not say from where the F-22’s took off, but mapping data showed a squad of these jets based as recently as last year at the al-Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates. Built by Lockheed-Martin, the F-22 program has cost $67 billion and only 188 planes of these planes have been built.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 13:01:50 +0000
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