The Story of A Navy Pilot shooting down a Syrian Jet

He sipped coffee at nearly 700 miles per hour, 20,000 feet above the Earth, roaring toward the battle of Raqqa. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael “M.O.B.” Tremel had a hunch the day’s mission would be different than the others he had flown into the gut of war-ravaged Syria, dropping bombs to protect friendly forces in the fight against the Islamic State.

But the Pennsylvania native carried no inkling that this operation on June 18, 2017, would secure his own place among naval aviation icons. “Defending the guys on the ground is what I’ve done my whole career,” the F/A-18E Super Hornet pilot told Navy Times last week at the Tailhook Association’s annual convention, where he received the Distinguished Flying Cross for becoming the first American pilot to shoot down an enemy plane since 1999. Tremel didn’t want to talk too much about those troops on the ground, but according to his medal citation they included an Air Force Joint Terminal Attack Controller, or JTAC, who was calling in strikes for Syrian rebels fighting Islamic State militants in their Raqqa stronghold. The beauty of the day clashed not only with the fighting below but also the thorny international politics that animate what strategists contend is a proxy war in Syria. It pits Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad and his Hezbollah and Russian allies against a shifting array of insurgents backed by Gulf Arab states and Turkey, plus Kurdish militias largely supported by the United States.

These days, the complicated battles on the ground are matched by a jumble of jets in the sky. “You have Russian aircraft, Turkish aircraft, Iraqis, the Syrian air force,” Tremel said. That’s not want Tremel saw outside his cockpit in 2014, three years into the Syrian civil war, when he joined one of the first U.S. sorties into the divided country to bomb Islamic State positions.

By last summer, a slip up could cause an international incident. The rules of engagement briefed to the “Golden Warriors” of Strike Fighter Squadron 87 stressed caution. Russian aviators appeared to reciprocate by flying “very professionally, and so did we,” Tremel said.

Tremel and his wingman, Lt. Cmdr. Carl “JoJo” Krueger, began their day with a launch off the carrier George H.W. Bush in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. They swung south of Cyprus and then jetted over Turkey toward Syria. Once on scene, Tremel said they “kind of orbited overhead" to get a better sense of what was going on above and below them.

Above, a Russian Su-35 Flanker fighter lingered, demanding their attention. Below, the JTAC had been aggressively calling in strikes and feeding them combat reports. And across the border in Iraq, U.S. and Baghdad forces were wresting Mosul from Islamic State fighters. “A couple guys who took off on an earlier wave from the boat had done a couple shows of force down low to try and stop (Syrian military forces) from employing weapons on our partners,” Tremel said.

His radar soon picked up an unknown aircraft closing fast on the U.S.-allied Kurdish and Arab militias bannered as the Syrian Democratic Forces. It was a Syrian Su-22 Fitter. Tremel said he tried to prod the pilot to move south and away from the friendly forces he was shepherding below.

Last year at a Tailhook panel, he told fellow Navy and Marine Corps aviators that he realized they would need to execute a “head butt.” He flew close overhead to the Syrian jet and fired out flares. “At any point in time, if this aircraft would head south and work its way out of the situation, it’d be fine with us,” Tremel said. “We could go back to executing (close-air support).”

That didn’t happen.

“He ended up rolling in, dropping ordnance, two bombs on those defended forces,” Tremel said. Tremel went for the Sidewinder missile. “It was really crazy, swinging that master arm for the first time in combat with an air-to-air missile selected,” he recalled. But it didn’t work.

“Real time, I thought I might have been too close,” Tremel said. “I thought maybe I hit (the jet) but it didn’t fuse in time.” So Tremel turned to the AIM-120, an advanced medium-range missile. “That got the job done from about half a mile,” he said. It sliced into the Fitter’s rump and pitched the jet right, then down.

Tremel had flown through a debris cloud after destroying a drone during air-to-air training as a junior officer, so he knew to veer left. He watched the Syrian pilot eject. The entire skirmish, from detecting the Syrian aircraft to shooting it down, took about eight minutes, Tremel said.

Krueger received an Air Medal last week not only for helping Tremel but also for putting his jet between the American aircraft and other threats after the Syrian jet fell to the ground. All of the Navy pilots were well briefed on both the dicey geopolitics and the rules of engagement that guided potential encounters with other aviators, Krueger said at last year’s Tailhook. “Looking at the wreckage down below us, it was a different feeling,” Krueger recalled. “We had to make some decisions pretty quickly, and I thought the training and commanders’ guidance that we got at that point was a big deal.” Last week, Tremel played down his actions and instead credited the sailors on the carrier who work hard, often in obscurity, to make sure even the rarely used missiles are ready to go when they are called upon. “For the one day we need them,” he said, “it works!”

Delta Force commando killed in Syria

The U.S. soldier killed in Syria Friday was taking part in a mission to capture or kill an ISIS leader, U.S. military official confirmed Monday. “Coalition forces, in an advise, assist and accompany capacity with our partners, were conducting a mission to kill or capture a known ISIS member when they were struck by an improvised explosive device,” said Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the U.S. lead anti-ISIS collation. “This operation was part of the Coalition's mission to defeat ISIS, and we remain focused on our mission.”

Master Sgt. Jonathan Dunbar was assigned to Headquarters, U.S. Special Operations Command, which is the designation often used for the Army’s secretive Delta Force. The Pentagon described Dunbar as a “team member,” who had deployed three times in support of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The force going after the ISIS leader also included British commandos. Sgt. Matt Tonroe, a British soldier who served in the 3rd Battalion of the elite Parachute Regiment, was also killed in the explosion.

Article from the Washington Examiner

Green Berets Have Been Fighting ISIS for Months, Say Kurdish Forces

The United States Special Forces elements currently stationed in Iraq are engaged in fighting against the Islamic State group, several Kurdish Iraqi fighters have told the British newspaper The Guardian, contradicting President Barack Obama’s assertion that no U.S. personnel were in direct combat with the extremist group.

According to The Guardian, none of the fighters with Kurdish Iraqi army, known as Peshmerga, were willing to publish their photos or video footage for fear of dismissal, but they allowed the newspaper's crew to watch the video and see the images on their cellphones.

A 29-year-old Peshmerga fighter named Peshawa showed a video through his cellphone filmed just after dawn on Sept. 11, showing four Western-looking men in a battle against the Islamic State group in Iraq. “These are the Americans,” Peshawa said referring to U.S. soldiers. He added that such footage and other asserts that Washington has been involved directly in the fight against the Islamic State group.

President Obama announced in June last year the deployment of 3,500 U.S. special forces to Iraq in order to “advise and train” Kurdish fighters in their fight against the extremist group, according to the Pentagon, but denied that this was part of a boots-on-the-ground operation. “The joke going around here is there are no boots on the ground because they’re all wearing sneakers,” an unnamed western volunteer with the peshmerga, told the Guardian.

Major Loqman Mohammed with the Peshmerga force showed another video, dated 11 June, where a U.S. soldier was seen wearing the uniform and badge of a Kurdish counter-terrorism unit and walking with two dozen Peshmerga fighters after several hours of fighting with Islamic State group militants in the village of Wastana and Saddam settlement.

“They fight and they even fight ahead of the Peshmerga. They won’t allow anyone to take photos of them, but they take photos of everyone, ” Karwan Hama Tata, a Peshmerga volunteer, told The Guardian reporter after showing him another video of two U.S. soldiers in the middle of an operation with other Kurdish fighters.

In an Oct. 28 report by Bloomberg, U.S. and Kurdish officials, not authorized to speak about the matter, said that he U.S. was running an operations center in Irbil city staffed by a special operations task force whose work is so classified its name is a state secret.

The Guardian said that when asked about the videos and the testimonies of the Kurdish fighters, the U.S. Central Command in Baghdad said: “No U.S. or coalition SOF [special operations forces] were engaged in any of these events you listed.” It added “we have no reports of any coalition advise and assist teams becoming engaged during the actions you referenced.”

Last month, Reuters reported the Obama administration was considering the deployment of special forces to Syria to “advise moderate Syrian opposition fighters for the first time and, potentially, to help call in U.S. air strikes”, one official had said.

The recent reports cast doubt over the statements by the Pentagon and the White House as well as Obama’s public assertions since he was first elected in 2008 that he did not want to involve the U.S. in wars in the middle east.

In fact, one of Obama’s presidential campaign promises was to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has yet to deliver on that promise and in fact have scaled back on the withdrawal of U.S. personnel from the two war-torn nations.

Article from TeleSur

Threat Levels Across the Globe

Threat Levels Across the Globe - tongue in cheek commentary from one who does it best, British Actor John Cleese.

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Syria and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France 's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."

The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose."

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia , meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be right, Mate." Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!" and "The barbie is cancelled." So far no situation has ever warranted use of the last final escalation level.

Additionally, John Cleese warns us that Greece is collapsing, the Iranians are getting aggressive, and Rome is in disarray. Welcome back to 430 BC.