U.S. Arms Warplanes With ‘Bunker Busting’ Bombs in Message to Iran

U.S. Arms Warplanes With ‘Bunker Busting’ Bombs in Message to Iran

Wall Street Journal – April 28th, 2023

The U.S. military is for the first time putting 250-pound “bunker busting” bombs on attack aircraft recently sent to the Middle East, American officials said, in the latest move to deter Iran.

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 U.S. forces have been repeatedly targeted by Iran-backed fighters, the officials said.

The move marks the first time that the U.S. 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 A-10s are highly effective at some of the things we need to do,” said Air Force Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, who oversees U.S. military operations in the skies above Syria and 20 other nations in the Middle East and Southeast Asia as head of the U.S. Air Forces Central Command.

The powerful bombs are arriving in the Middle East at a time of heightened tensions with Iran. On Thursday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps detained an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman as it carried crude to the U.S. from Kuwait.

The vessel, a Marshall Islands-flagged ship called the Advantage Sweet, remained in detention on Friday and could be held for a long time.

Iran says the Advantage Sweet collided with an Iranian ship in the Persian Gulf, causing injuries, and then tried to escape. The U.S. Navy says Iran violated international law by detaining the ship and called for its immediate release.

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 U.S. bases in Syria, including one suicide-drone strike that killed an American contractor. President Biden responded to the attacks by ordering airstrikes on Iran-backed militants in Syria.

The new squadron represents a 50% increase in the number of attack aircraft in the region, Gen. Grynkewich said.

Moving the Warthogs into the Middle East was part of a broader effort to beef up the American military presence amid rising concerns about attacks by Iran and its militant allies across the region.

The U.S. military also announced the arrival last month of a guided-missile submarine in the Middle East, a public show of force. At the time, U.S. 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.

Concerns about that threat eased after the USS Florida, which can carry 150 Tomahawk missiles, arrived in the Red Sea, the officials said.