Tag: Jordan

  • The Six Day War

    The Six Day War

    FROM LEFT: Central Command head Uzi Narkiss, defense minister Moshe Dayan and IDF chief of staff Yitzhak Rabin walk through the Lions’ Gate into Jerusalem’s Old City in June 1967

    With the current Israeli/Hamas war as a backdrop, today marks the 57th anniversary of the start of the 3rd Arab-Israeli war. This conflict is also known as the June war and the 1967 war.

    The proximate cause of the war was the closure of the straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping by Egyptian strongman Gamal Nasser on 22 May 1967. (I’m oversimplifying to be sure, but the most immediate cause of the war was the closure.) The closure of the straits effectively closed the Israeli port of Eilat. He had closed the straits before, during the 1956 Suez crisis, and Israel had made repeated statements that closure of the straits would be considered an act of war.

    After the war, President Johnson said:

    If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other, it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision that the Straits of Tiran would be closed. The right of innocent, maritime passage must be preserved for all nations.

    Egypt, Syria and Jordan had entered into mutual defense pacts in the months leading up to the war. Based on faulty – purposely so – Russian intelligence, Nassar moved much of the Egyptian armed forces into the Sinai,

    On 5 June 1967, the Israeli Air Force launched Operation Focus (Moked). All but 12 of its nearly 200 operational jets launched a mass attack against Egypt’s airfields. Egyptian forces were caught by surprise, and nearly all of Egypt’s military aerial assets were destroyed, giving Israel air supremacy. Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. After some initial resistance, Nasser ordered an evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula; by the sixth day of the conflict, Israel had occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula.

    Egypt wasn’t the only Arab country involved, nor were they the only one to lose territory. Jordan, backed by Iraq and Saudi Arabia, lost the ‘West Bank’ to the IDF while Syria lost the Golan Heights.

    Casualties were relatively light given the numbers of combatants involved. Somewhere between 700 and 1000 Israelis were killed and 4,517 were wounded. Arab casualties were far greater. Between 9,800 and 15000 Egyptian soldiers were listed as killed or missing in action. I should note that Nasser gave orders that stragglers should be shot and left where they dropped. An additional 4,338 Egyptian soldiers were captured or surrendered. Jordanian losses were estimated to be 700 killed in action with another 2,500 wounded. The Syrians were estimated to have sustained between 1000 and 2,500 killed in action. Between 367 and 591 Syrians were captured.

  • Pentagon IDs Army Reserve soldiers killed in Jordan Tower 22 attack

    Pentagon IDs Army Reserve soldiers killed in Jordan Tower 22 attack

    Three Army Reserve soldiers were killed in the Jan. 28, 2024, drone attack on the Tower 22 base in Jordan. From L to R: Spc. Kennedy L. Sanders, Spc. Breonna A. Moffett, and Sgt. William J. Rivers. All three were assigned to the 718th Engineer Company, based at Fort Moore, Georgia. (Courtesy/Army Public Affairs)

    Davis Winkie | Army Times

    Military officials have released the identities of three Army Reserve soldiers killed in a one-way drone attack that occurred Sunday at a U.S. military base in northeastern Jordan near the country’s borders with Syria and Iraq.

    The three fallen troops were all members of the Army Reserve’s 718th Engineer Company. Their names, according to Defense Department and Army releases, are: Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, a resident of Carrollton, Georgia; Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia; and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia.

    Rivers, who hailed form Willingboro, New Jersey, joined the Reserve as an electrician in 2011, according to the Army release. He previously deployed to Iraq in 2018 as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the anti-ISIS effort. His individual awards included an Army Achievement Medal in addition to service and campaign ribbons.

    Sanders enlisted as a horizontal construction engineer in 2019, the Army said. She deployed to Djibouti in 2021, earning numerous service and campaign ribbons.

    Moffett, who also joined the Reserve in 2019 as a horizontal construction engineer, was on her first deployment, the release said.

    All three soldiers were assigned to the 718th Engineer Company in 2023 ahead of the deployment. Sanders and Moffett previously served in another engineer unit based in the south Georgia town of Tifton.

    Drone hit “containerized housing units”

    At least 34 other service members were injured in the attack, including eight who required medical evacuation from Jordan, said Central Command. Iran-backed militia groups, supported by the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps, launched the drone, according to U.S. officials.

    The drone hit the soldiers’ housing units, the Army release said, adding that an investigation into their deaths is underway.

    The remote base where the soldiers were killed, Tower 22, houses approximately 350 American troops, according to Central Command. It provides engineering, aviation and logistical support to other U.S. facilities in the region, including the garrison at al-Tanf, Syria, some 12 miles north.

    The 718th Engineer Company — part of the 926th Engineer Brigade’s 926th Engineer Battalion — is headquartered at Fort Moore, Ga., and consists primarily of part-time soldiers. It’s unclear whether the injured include troops from other units.

    Original Here

  • Middle East Round-Up

    Middle East Round-Up

    Tower 22

    For those of you not tracking, some tribe of inbred goat-f*ckers killed 3 Soldiers and injured at least 38 more in Jordan Saturday night. I held off on writing about it since then, because I was expecting a response. Yah, I know, wishful thinking.

    As I was getting ready to publish this, some new intel crossed the transom. Tower 22, the US base in Northwestern Jordan, was not the only target. A suicide drone was shot down by a US Coyote drone over al Tanf, the US base in Syria. The Coyote took the shot as it was returning to Tower 22.

    So far, all we’ve seen from the White House is a weak-kneed statement about the attack.

    Yesterday, the majority of Iran-backed militias were told by the IRGC to abandon their bases of operation pending a US attack. This makes targeting more difficult for the US.

    As of late yesterday, several KC-135 tankers were outbound from their base at March AFB in Southern California headed to RAF Lakenheath in the UK. It is unclear if this is a regular rotation or related to the situation in Jordan.

    Biden met with the NSC this morning to discuss the situation. This meeting should have occurred Saturday night, or at the latest Sunday morning.

    . . .National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, Principal Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer, Homeland Security Advisor Dr. Liz Sherwood Randall, and NSC Coordinator for the Middle East Brett McGurk.

    I am not sanguine about the response. Sullivan, Finer and McGurk are all Iran apologists. Sullivan in particular shouldn’t be anywhere near the decision making process.

    I expect a set of limited strikes err, a strongly worded letter in retaliation, but that isn’t what needs to happen. Limiting our response just shows weakness.

    Look, we all know Iran is behind these attacks, including those on shipping in the Gulf of Aden-Bab el Mandeb-Red sea area. Iran needs to be taught a harsh lesson. The Iranian spy ship, Beshad, that’s feeding targeting data to the Houthi needs to become a reef. The Iranian proxies that are actually pulling the triggers need to meet Allah. And any IRGC forces outside of Iran proper need to catch a J-DAM.

  • Coup Attempt Foiled in Jordan

    Coup Attempt Foiled in Jordan

    King Abdullah, l, and former Crown Prince Hamza

    Jordanian authorities raided the palace of the kingdom’s former crown prince on Saturday and arrested two senior aides after uncovering what intelligence officials believe was an attempted coup against the ruling monarch, King Abdullah. The former chief of the royal court Bassem Awadallah, Prince Hamza’s chief of staff Yasser Majali and former Jordanian envoy to Saudi Arabia Hassan Bin Zayed are among those in custody related to the coup attempt.

    Former Jordanian Crown Prince Hamzah bin Hussein has reportedly been placed under house arrest, although Jordanian officials deny he’s under arrest.

    Military chief Yusef Ahmed al-Hunait said in a statement that he had been “asked to stop movements and activities that were used to target the security and stability of Jordan”.

    Abdullah, who has ruled the kingdom since the death of his father, King Hussein, in 1999, had not been thought to have faced serious organised opposition throughout his two-decade reign. The kingdom had widely been viewed as a bastion of stability in an otherwise turbulent region.

    https://twitter.com/RedPilledPoland/status/1378429720170274828?s=20

    Jordan has been a close and reliable US ally under the reign of King Abdullah. “We are closely following the reports and in touch with Jordanian officials,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said. “King Abdullah is a key partner of the United States, and he has our full support.”