American drones are winning air war from afar
Operation illustrates how pilots helped force ISIS from Libyan city without leaving the U. S.
A handful of drones controlled from the United States and a small force of offshore Marine aircraft played a decisive role in defeating Islamic State fighters in Libya last December, the most prominent example of how the U. S. military can help win a key battle from afar.
The four- month air campaign to drive militants from Sirte without committing large numbers of U. S. advisers or ground forces is being studied as a model for future U. S. military efforts against the Islamic State as its fighters are ousted from Iraq and Syria and seek refuge elsewhere, officials said.
The Sirte operation will “serve as a model for future U. S. operations in the region,” Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, commander of U. S. Africa Command, recently told Congress.
The fighting in Sirte was in a densely packed city where nearly 70% of the drone missions were considered so close to friendly forces they needed special authorization.
The missiles were sometimes delivered within 30 yards of local allies. “We’re literally talking almost across city streets,” Col. Case Cunningham, commander of the 432nd Expeditionary Wing at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, said in an interview on the operation in which he provided previously unreported details of the campaign.
There were no reports of civilian casualties.
“Wherever ( Islamic State fighters) go, we’re going to find them,” Cunningham said.
The U. S. Air Force relied exclusively on three MQ- 9 Reapers flown from bases in Nevada, Tennessee and North Dakota. Marines operated from amphibious ships, and a small number of Special Forces were dispatched to work with local ground forces fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.
The Pentagon had become increasingly alarmed over the growing strength of ISIS in Sirte, a city on the Mediterranean coast near Libya’s valuable oil- producing operations.
The Islamic State, which had taken over the city in May 2015, expanded to about 6,000 fighters in Libya, the militants’ largest stronghold outside Iraq and Syria. It was an ideal place for the militants to grow: The central government was divided, militias held sway over much of the oil- rich country, and U. S. intelligence was sketchy.
Last summer it became clear that a militia from Misrata, a coastal city about 150 miles west of Sirte, was willing to take on the militants and back Libya’s newly established government of national accord. That prompted President Obama to authorize military support for the new government last July.
“The willingness of the Misrata militia to fight was impressive,” said Col. Todd Simmons, commander of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit.
Still, the challenge was enormous. The U. S. military was asked to provide airstrikes from afar with few contacts on the ground and in a heavily populated city.
“It was street- to- street fighting in a very dense environment,” Cunningham said.
Teams of Special Forces in the area helped oversee the fighting, and the Marines had to be creative in providing close air support, Simmons said.
The Reaper drones produced roundtheclock images of the city, he said. “My folks knew that town inside and out.”
The Reapers also fired precise Hellfire missiles and reacted quickly to threats, such as taking out an individual sniper in a building. Nearly 70% of the drone airstrikes were “danger- close,” meaning they needed special authorization because friendly forces were inside the blast radius, Cunningham said.
From August to December, the drones and Marines conducted 495 airstrikes in Sirte. By early December, the Misrata militia had pushed out the Islamic State.