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Air Force Reserve fighters destroy terrorist hideout

  • Published
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  Air Force Reserve Command F-16 pilots bombed a booby-trapped house near Al Mahmudiyah, Iraq, Nov. 23.

Anti-Iraqi forces had attacked Iraqi army soldiers with an improvised explosive device two days earlier. When coalition ground forces secured the area, they discovered the booby-trapped house, which had been used as a terrorist hideout.

After an explosive ordnance disposal team investigated the house and cleared the area of civilians, the F-16s dropped 500-pound, precision-guided bombs and destroyed the target.

The precision-guided bombs used on the F-16s are the GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munitions. JDAMs are designed to reduce collateral damage, limit unintended casualties and take the fight to enemy insurgents. These munitions autonomously navigate to designated target coordinates, which can be loaded into the aircraft before takeoff or manually altered by the aircrew before release.

Air Force Reserve F-16 pilots and support people are in Southwest Asia on a rotational basis until February. Reservists from the 482nd Fighter Wing, Homestead Air Reserve Base, Fla., deployed in September. Other F-16 crews from the 301st FW, Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, Texas, arrived in October to replace them. Citizen Airmen from the 419th FW, Hill AFB, Utah, and 944th FW, Luke AFB, Ariz., are slated to go overseas later this year and early next year.

The reservists are flying aircraft from the Reserve units in Florida, Texas and Utah. While deployed, they belong to the 332nd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron at Balad Air Base, Iraq.

Since January 2005 there have been more than 480 air strikes against insurgent staging areas, buildings where anti-Coalition forces are hiding, motor-firing sites, improvised explosive device locations and weapons caches.

More than 15,000 air strike missions have been flown in 2005 providing close-air support for Coalition ground forces involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom. (AFRC News Service from a U.S. Central Command news release)