Including 13 aircraft.. An American report reveals a surprise: Washington’s bases in Iraq were stolen

Including 13 aircraft.. An American report reveals a surprise: Washington’s bases in Iraq were stolen

2023-11-26 | 02:19

Including 13 aircraft.. An American report reveals a surprise - Washingtons bases in Iraq were stolenAlsumaria News – International
American military sites in Iraq and Syria are suffering from theft of weapons and equipment, according to exclusive documents obtained by the American website The Intercept, as American forces are systematically targeted.
The American website stated, in a report translated by Alsumaria News, that “military investigations that began earlier this year found that multiple weapons and sensitive equipment – including guided missile launch systems as well as drones – had been stolen in Iraq.”

This comes after hundreds of thousands of dollars of military equipment were stolen from American forces in…Iraq And Syria Between 2020 and 2022, as The Intercept reported earlier this year.

And American bases in Iraq And Syria It ostensibly exists for “counter-ISIS missions,” but experts say it is primarily used as a way to restrain Iran.

Since the conflict between Israel and Hamas erupted in October, these bases have been subjected to regular missile and drone attacks as part of an undeclared war between the United States, Iran and affiliated groups.

The United States has increasingly responded to these attacks, and in Syria The United States launched “precision strikes” on “a training facility and a safe house” allegedly used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.” The United States has

since used an AC-130 warplane against “a vehicle of armed groups and a number of members of Iranian-backed actors.” In an unknown location, following a ballistic missile attack on Al-Asad Air Base in the west Iraq. The Minister of Defense said Lloyd Austin He justified the US strikes: “The president has no higher priority than the safety of American personnel.”

But criminal investigation documents obtained by The Intercept prove that the United States cannot even secure its equipment, let alone protect its forces.

She said Stephanie Saville “We tend not to think critically enough about the ripple effects of such an expanded U.S. military presence,” co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University, told The Intercept.

He added, “The so-called war on terrorism is not over yet, it has just shifted. We can understand these weapons thefts as just one of the many political costs of this ongoing campaign.”

Details about the thefts were found at Iraq, which the Army never made public, in criminal investigative files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

In February, military investigators were notified that 13 commercial drones, worth approximately $162,500, had been stolen from a US facility in Erbil, B.Iraq, sometime last year. Agents have not identified any suspects, and no leads are listed in the file.

In February, military investigators were notified that 13 commercial drones had been stolen from a US facility in Erbil, B.Iraq.

A separate investigation discovered that “numerous sensitive weapons and equipment” including targeting sighting units and Javelin missile launchers – a guided missile launched from the shoulder and attached to its targets – had been stolen from Forward Operating Base Union III in Baghdad, Iraq Or en route, and losses to the US government were estimated at approximately $480,000.”

Investigators did not believe the thefts were an inside job. “No known US employees were involved,” according to the criminal investigation file. Instead, investigators refer to local residents as Possible suspects:

“Iraqi organizations target convoys and containers of weapons and equipment,” the document stated. “Furthermore, there have been systemic issues with the theft of US containers by these groups and local citizens outside Third Union, Due to insecurity.”

Earlier this year, The Intercept revealed at least four major thefts and one loss of American weapons and equipment in Iraq And Syria From 2020 to 2022, including 40 mm high-explosive bombs, armor-piercing rounds, specialized field artillery tools and equipment, and unspecified tools. “Weapons Systems”. Two of these incidents occurred at bases in Syria And three in Iraq. None of those thefts occurred at Forward Operating Base Union III.

The number of thefts that occurred is unknown, perhaps even to the Pentagon. After more than two months, both Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolution, which oversees America’s war in…Iraq And Syria, and the parent organization, US Central Command, in response to any of The Intercept’s questions about gun thefts in Iraq And Syria.

Earlier this year, the task force admitted it did not know the extent of the problem: A spokesman for the task force said it had no record of any thefts from US forces. “We do not have the required information,” the captain said Kevin T. Livingston, director of public affairs for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, told The Intercept when asked if any weapons, ammunition or equipment had been stolen in the past five years.

The thefts and losses uncovered by The Intercept are just the latest weapons accountability problems plaguing the US military Iraq And Syria. A 2017 investigation by the Pentagon Inspector General concluded that $20 million in weapons were in Kuwait and Iraq It was “subject to loss or theft.”

The 2020 review discovered that Joint Special Operations Task Force– Operation Inherent Resolve, the main unit working with America’s Syrian allies, did not properly account for $715.8 million in equipment purchased for these local proxies.

Groups such as Amnesty International and Conflict Armament Research have also found that a significant portion of ISIS’s arsenal consists of US-made or US-purchased weapons and ammunition captured, stolen or otherwise obtained from the Iraqi military and Syrian fighters.

Losses in weapons and ammunition are significant – and the military has gone to great lengths to prevent them in the past, when the United States withdrew its forces from a position near Kobani,Syria In 2019, it launched airstrikes on the munitions it left behind.

The military also destroyed equipment and ammunition during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. However, within weeks of the US defeat, US-made pistols, rifles, grenades, binoculars and night vision goggles flooded gun shops there. Others were exported to Pakistan.

Since the outbreak of the Israeli war on Gaza, it has become clearer than ever that US bases in the Middle East serve as magnets for attack, even though outlying outposts are periodically targeted in other conflict zones. In 2019, for example, the terrorist group Al-Shabaab attacked a US base in Baledogle, Somalia, and the following year, the same group raided an old US outpost in Kenya, killing three Americans and wounding two others.

In recent weeks, US bases in Iraq and Syria have at times come under sustained attack, including as many as four drone and missile strikes within a 24-hour period. US forces have been attacked more than 70 times – 36 times in Iraq, 37 times in Syria – since October 17. More than 60 US soldiers were injured, according to Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh.

Investigative files obtained by The Intercept provide evidence that US military bases also provide tempting targets. Earlier this year, The Intercept reported on a daring daylight armed robbery of military contractors less than a mile from the entrance to Air Base 201, a large US drone base in Niger. In 2013, hundreds of weapons along with armored vehicles were looted from a US special operations complex in Libya.

A 2021 Associated Press investigation found that at least 1,900 military weapons were lost or stolen during the 2000s — from bases stretching from Afghanistan to North Carolina — and that some were then used in violent crimes.

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