Japan Press Weekly

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2008 August 20 - 26 [US FORCES]

Misawa-based U.S. fighter jet attacked Afghanistan

It has been revealed that in August last year F-16 fighter jets from the U.S. Misawa Air Base in Aomori Prefecture carried out a secret bombing mission on the stronghold of the insurgent Taliban in eastern Afghanistan.

Some U.S. military analysts say that the mission may have been conducted in preparation for a U.S. attack against Iran in connection with the country’s nuclear program.

The website of the U.S. Misawa Base shows that U.S. F-16 fighter squadrons were deployed to Iraq’ Balad Air Base as an expeditionary force. On August 12 last year, four F-16 fighters flew about 3,380 km to eastern Afghanistan and fired more than 12 precision-guided missiles against the Taliban foothold to pave the way for U.S. ground forces to attack.

The F-16 fighter jets based in Misawa have been tasked to support ground forces in Iraq, which indicates that they have an “anti-terrorism” mission in addition to their original task of destroying enemy air defense systems. The latest secret operation shows that they are now involved in a “global strike” strategy.

U.S. military analyst William Arkin’s article in the Washington Post, “A Secret Afghanistan Mission Prepares for War with Iran,” stressed that the U.S. forces have developed an “entire system called ‘global strike’ to implement such a preemptive strike.”

“A secret mission conducted last August over Afghanistan caught my eye because it tells us everything we need to know about the ability of the U.S. military to conduct a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack in Iran,” Arkin wrote.
- Akahata, August 24, 2008