The US military is for the first time putting 250-pound “bunker busting” bombs on attack aircraft recently sent to the Middle East in the latest move to deter Iran, US officials said.
Wall Street Journal reported that the decision to put more powerful weapons on a squadron of A-10 Warthogs was designed to give pilots a greater chance of success in destroying ammunition bunkers and other entrenched targets in Iraq and Syria, where US forces have been repeatedly targeted by Iran-backed fighters.
The move marks the first time that the US military will put these precision-guided weapons on board the Warthogs, which were recently refitted so that they could each carry up to 16 bunker busters, known formally as GBU-39/B bombs.
The powerful bombs are arriving in the Middle East at a time of heightened tensions with Iran.
On Thursday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) detained an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman as it carried crude to the US from Kuwait.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich said the A-10s are highly effective at some things we need to do.
Grynkewich oversees US military operations in the skies above Syria and 20 other nations in the Middle East and Southeast Asia as head of the US Air Forces Central Command.
The new squadron represents a 50 percent increase in the number of attack aircraft in the region, Grynkewich said.
The Pentagon sent the Warthog squadron, usually around 12 planes, to the Middle East last month after Iran-backed forces carried out a series of attacks on US bases in Syria, including one suicide-drone strike that killed a US contractor.
US President Joe Biden responded to the attacks by ordering airstrikes on Iran-backed militants in Syria.
Moving the Warthogs into the Middle East was part of a broader effort to beef up the US military presence amid rising concerns about attacks by Iran and its militant allies across the region.
The upgrade will give the Warthogs more firepower than F-15 jet fighters, US officials said.
It also represents an advance on the military’s efforts to demonstrate the value of the aging Warthog fleet that Pentagon officials have been trying to retire for more than a decade.
The US military also announced the arrival last month of a guided-missile submarine in the Middle East, a public show of force.
At the time, US officials said they had intelligence that Iran was preparing to carry out a drone attack on a commercial ship in the region, something Washington has accused Tehran of doing several times in recent years.
Meanwhile, new research by Uk-based Conflict Armament Research (CAR) revealed that the Shahed-136 drones sold to Russia by Iran are powered by an engine based on German technology – technology illicitly acquired by Iran almost 20 years ago.
The finding – made through a detailed examination of components recovered in Ukraine and shared exclusively with CNN – underlines Iran’s ability to mimic and finesse military technology it has obtained illegitimately.
CNN reported that Western officials are also concerned that Russia may share Western-made weapons and equipment recovered on the Ukrainian battlefield with the Iranians. So far, there’s no firm evidence that this has happened.
