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Iraq’s F-16 Program Stalls as US Contractors Evacuate Balad Airbase

Buildings are seen during a press tour inside al-Asad military airbase in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, Jan. 13, 2020. (AFP)
Buildings are seen during a press tour inside al-Asad military airbase in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, Jan. 13, 2020. (AFP)
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Iraq’s F-16 Program Stalls as US Contractors Evacuate Balad Airbase

Buildings are seen during a press tour inside al-Asad military airbase in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, Jan. 13, 2020. (AFP)
Buildings are seen during a press tour inside al-Asad military airbase in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, Jan. 13, 2020. (AFP)

US contractors evacuated Iraq’s Balad Airbase where they were supporting Iraq’s F-16 program, US Stars and Stripes daily military newspaper reported.

The US government withdrew the military personnel following a number of rocket attacks that targeted the airbase.

"Without the Americans, the Iraqis cannot perform the full range of maintenance tasks on the country’s fleet of F-16s, which are key in the fight against the ISIS group," the report said.

It also said that 32 of the 36 F-16 fighter jets Iraq received from 2014 to 2017 were inventoried at Balad Airbase last summer, and 75% were either fully or partially operational in December.

"In the first three months of 2021 they flew 299 sorties, the Lead Inspector General for Operation Inherent Resolve said in a quarterly report Tuesday."

All but four of those sorties were training missions, it said, according to the report.

Contractors and coalition military air advisors previously evacuated Balad in January 2020 as tensions between Washington and Tehran played out in Iraq in back-and-forth strikes, including the US assassination of a top Iranian general at Baghdad International Airport and Iran’s retaliatory ballistic missile strike on two Iraqi bases.

Also, the US-based Lockheed Martin and Sallyport Global failed to support the F-16s due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report asserted that military air advisors are no longer housed at the base, saying "while US Air Force advisers regularly visit Balad, the lack of a dedicated advising presence and secure communications have so far kept the F-16s of Iraq’s 9th Fighter Squadron off the coalition’s air tasking order."

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Report: France Issues New Arrest Warrant for Syria's Assad

A damaged portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hangs in the city of Qamishli, as Syrian Kurds celebrate the fall of capital Damascus to anti-government fighters on December 8, 2024. (AFP)
A damaged portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hangs in the city of Qamishli, as Syrian Kurds celebrate the fall of capital Damascus to anti-government fighters on December 8, 2024. (AFP)
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Report: France Issues New Arrest Warrant for Syria's Assad

A damaged portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hangs in the city of Qamishli, as Syrian Kurds celebrate the fall of capital Damascus to anti-government fighters on December 8, 2024. (AFP)
A damaged portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hangs in the city of Qamishli, as Syrian Kurds celebrate the fall of capital Damascus to anti-government fighters on December 8, 2024. (AFP)

Two French investigating magistrates have issued an arrest warrant against ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for suspected complicity in war crimes, the second such move by France's judicial authorities, a source said on Tuesday.

Assad, who was ousted late last year in a lightning offensive by opposition forces, is held responsible in the warrant issued on Monday as "commander-in-chief of the armed forces" for a bombing in the Syrian city of Daraa in 2017 that killed a civilian, a source close to the case, asking not to be named, told AFP.

This mandate was issued as part of an investigation into the case of Salah Abou Nabout, a 59-year-old Franco-Syrian national and former French teacher, who was killed on June 7, 2017 following the bombing of his home by Syrian army helicopters.

The French judiciary considers that Assad ordered and provided the means for this attack, according to the source.

Six senior Syrian army officials are already the target of French arrest warrants over the case in an investigation that began in 2018.

"This case represents the culmination of a long fight for justice, in which I and my family believed from the start," said Omar Abou Nabout, the victim's son, in a statement.

He expressed hope that "a trial will take place and that the perpetrators will be arrested and judged, wherever they are".

French authorities in November 2023 issued a first arrest warrant against Assad over chemical attacks in 2013 where more than a thousand people, according to American intelligence, were killed by sarin gas.

While considering Assad's participation in these attacks "likely", public prosecutors last year issued an appeal against the warrant on the grounds that Assad should have immunity as a head of state.

However, his ouster has now changed his status and potential immunity. Assad and his family fled to Russia after his fall, according to Russian authorities.