Air war spikes up in Iraq

A-10 Thunderbolt (U.S. Air Force photo/Maj. David Kurle)

We see almost nothing about the air wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the war news in the regular press. But the Air Force does provide daily totals and some details of operations - none of it vetted through independent reporting - at their Air Force Link Web site.

For whatever reason, the number of "close air support" missions they report in Iraq has spiked up since Sunday March 18, when they reported 63 such missions, 67 on Monday, and 64 on Tuesday. Through last Friday, they've been reporting an average of 47 missions per day in March. The number in Afghanistan doesn't seem to have spiked at all.

For some reason, they haven't published separate reports on the number of missions flown the last two Saturdays. I could back into the figures for Saturday March 10, and the number didn't seem unusual.

Tags: air war, iraq, iraq war

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