THE PYROTECHNICS OF WAR: PANDEMONIUM ON MULTIPLE FRONTS

The Middle East lands, both the Levant and Mashriq, has undergone seismic change over the past two years.

- DR SHADAB AHMED

Days after the US and Israel first launched strikes against Iran, the extant volatile region enters yet another critical chapter. The scale of confrontation and the scope of conflict widens by the hour, multilaterally opening strategic fronts that spells cataclysmic terror for the global economy and leaves thousands of travellers stranded.

THE STRATEGIC ARSENAL

To negate the perceived Fatality of Doom, American led retribution saw Washington assembling its largest maritime force and some of its most powerful weaponry in the Middle East in decades. The US force came “locked and loaded” and joined the Israelis in “Operation Epic Fury” for the personal ruination of the Ayatollah as well as with a pernicious destructive intent. The B-2 stealth bombers armed with the 2000-pound Mark-84 bombs, LUCAS (Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System) drones from the Task Force Scorpion Strike (TFSS) and the MQ-9 drones (Multi-role Remotely Piloted Aircraft-9), the aircraft carriers and guided-missile destroyers USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea and the USS Gerald R. Ford in the Mediterranean Sea with their polished assortment of Navy and Marine Corps F-16, F/A-18 and F-35 interceptors, Tomahawk missile systems, AEGIS ballistic missile defence systems, PATRIOT (Phased Array Tracking Radar for Intercept on Target) and THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defence batteries, EA-18G Growler (Electronic Aircraft Attack), the Air Force E-3 Sentry and the Navy E-2 Hawkeye AWACS (Airborne Early Warning and Control Aircraft), EA-11 BACN (Battlefield Airborne Communications Node) aircraft or the WiFi of the skies, The Army’s M-142 HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) together rained down hell and bombarded the Iranian Biabans, Rustas, Dabestans including the Iranian military installations, under the US Central Command (CENTCOM)’s dynamic warmongering capabilities.

THE FOREBODING OF DOOM