US bombing in Syria and Iraq cost $11 billion so far

After two and a half years of fighting the Islamic State through an air war the costs to the United States is huge. So far the total cost is estimated at about $11 billion but this includes only the costs of the military operations not other costs.

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About $2.5 billion was spent for bombs, about 22 percent of the total costs for the air war in Iraq and Syria. The remainder of the costs included expenses for keeping the planes in the air and for logistics. Obama had presented the air attacks as a very limited war but the cost is building and the war seems far from over yet. Donald Trump has promised to eradicate the Islamic State and so the expenditures are not likely to end anytime soon. The attacks are destroying a great deal of infrastructure. The U.S. may be asked to help finance reconstruction especially in Iraq. The costs of replacing munitions and of reconstruction my be larger than the cost of the original operations.

The average daily cost of operations as of December 15, 2016 was $12.5 million for 861 days of operation. The cost rose from the $5.5 billion that had been spent up to the same period last year. Operation Inherent Resolve began in June 2014. About two thirds of the costs, more than $8 billion fell to the Air Force. The Army accounted for 17 percent. The Navy was 12 percent and the Special Operations Command was eight percent. There were more than 17,000 strikes. Munitions represented 22 percent of costs, and logistical support 19 percent.

One of the largest airstrikes was against IS in Palmyra Syria back on December 8th last year. Officials claimed it destroyed 168 enemy oil tankers and the following day attacks destroyed 20 more operating in the area. Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, said that the operation code-named Olympus had been planned for two weeks. Harrigan said: “There would be a larger strategic message we sent to them: Nice try. We found you. Keep trying to hide; we will hunt you down again.” Last summer was the busiest time ever in the bombing operation. June was the busiest month for the campaign. A variety of aircraft are used including the F-SE Strike Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, B-52 Stratofortress, and F-22 Raptors, as well as several types of drones and reconnaissance aircraft.

During the opening three days of the Mosul offensive last November U.S. bombs fell on the city at the rate of about one bomb every eight minutes. Colonel Daniel Manning said that the volume of strikes set the operation apart from others. He said it was rare to have such a concentration of precision-guided weapons used over a whole city for such an extended length of time. The Islamic State has now lost about half of the territory it had taken in 2014.

US-led bombing raids targeting infrastructure causing civilian casualties

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-rebel reporting group based in the UK, claims that a US air strike on an oil refinery in northern Syria killed at least 30 people.

The Observatory said that although some IS militants were among those killed, many were civilian locals who worked at the refinery. The attack is one of many directed not at the military bases of the IS but critical infrastructure. The U.S. admits that the intent is to deny IS funds that it gets from oil resources. The IS controls much of the oil-producing regions of Syria. Not only does this type of attack involve deliberately attacking targets that will involve civilian casualties, they also hurt the civilian population in areas occupied by the IS, since the funds from oil also provide not only jobs for locals but also are partly used to fund services in IS-controlled areas.

After an attack on the village of Kfar Daryan last September that is said to have killed at least a dozen civilians, the Obama administration admitted that its restrictive targeting rules meant to avoid civilian deaths did not apply to air strikes in Syria or Iraq: National Security Council spokesman Caitlin Hayden confirmed that the same rules no longer apply.

Hayden said the 'near certainty' standard was created for attacks 'outside areas of active hostilities' which 'simply does not fit what we are seeing on the ground in Iraq and Syria right now.'

This attack was on a group within the Al Nusra front US intelligence calls the Khorasan. The result of this attack was for Al Nusra to turn on US funded rebels ultimately destroying the CIA's favourite moderate rebel group Harakat Hazm . The Front captured their base along with a huge cache of US provided weapons. Photos of the destruction caused by the attack can be foundhere. The appended video shows one reaction to the attack. No Arab states actually took part in the bombing of the Nusra Front only against IS targets. Before this attack, the Al Qaeda-linked Front had cooperated with other rebel groups in attacks both against Assad forces and the Islamic State. All rebel groups of every stripe condemned the strike.

Last December 28th, an attack on a building containing a jail may have killed 50 or even more civilians that were being held inside. Journalists Roy Gutman and Mousab Alhamadee said the building was completely destroyed and it was days before workers could retrieve all the bodies according to their report in McClatchy: "McClatchy located two sources who confirmed a high civilian death toll from the strike. One witness, an activist in Al Bab, gave the death toll as 61 civilian prisoners and 13 Islamic State guards. The Syrian Network for Human Rights estimated the death toll at 80, and said 25 of those were Islamic State Guards and another 55 were either civilians or imprisoned fighters from non-Islamic State rebel groups."The US acknowledged: "Coalition aircraft did strike and destroy an ISIL headquarters building in Al Bab on Dec. 28." There is no mention of civilian casualties or that the building included a jail. Later the Pentagon noted it had received nine reports of civilian deaths in Syria and that it was still investigating four but did not say if the Al Bab incident was under review.

Other attacks on infrastructure include one on grain silos. The policy of attacks on infrastructure date back to last September. On September 29th we have this report:"In eastern Syria, U.S.-led forces bombed a gas plant controlled by the Islamic State outside Deir al-Zor city, wounding several of the militant group's fighters, the Observatory said. The United States has said it wants strikes to target oil facilities held by Islamic State to try to stem a source of revenues for the group.The raid hit Kuniko gas plant, which feeds a power station in Homs that provides several provinces with electricity and powers oil fields generators, the Observatory said."

A policy of targeting infrastructure fails to take into account the extremely negative effects this will have on those living in IS-controlled areas and also the inevitable civilian casualties these bombings caused.

US bombings in Syria anger almost all Syria rebels

The Islamic State(IS) has captured territory held by other rebel groups and fought against them. Surely the rebels should welcome the strikes. However, the strikes were directed not only against IS but other radical rebel groups as well.

The US bombing attacks also targeted Jabhat al-Nusra(JaN), an Al-Qaeda-linked radical group but one that has mostly fought in cooperation with the FSA and other rebel groups such as the Islamic Front. There are reports that the bombing attacks were directed also at Ahrar al-Sham in the Aleppo area. The group is not linked to Al-Qaeda at all and operates in tandem with the Free Syrian Army that is supported by the west.
One US official explained: "We're characterizing our targets as Khorasan and ISIS but its possible others were there. It is a toxic soup of terrorists". Khorasan is a jihadist group that has migrated to Syria. It is associated with Al Qaeda and apparently includes a bomb-maker from Yemen. It hopes to hit targets in the west. James Clapper, Director of US National Intelligence claims that "in terms of threat to the homeland Khorasan may pose as much of a danger as the Islamic State (IS)".
While attacking the Nusra Front and Khorasan mayl seem quite reasonable from the point of view of the US war against terror, it makes no sense to Syrian rebels. Just when the rebels need all the help they can get against the Assad regime, the US actions appear to help him out in key areas such as Aleppo where the rebels are already having difficulties holding their ground and radical groups are an important fighting force. The US has claimed that it was bombing the Islamic State in Syria but instead it is attacking any radical rebel group that it does not like even though those groups are helping the Free Syrian army and other rebels against Assad.
The bombings are cheered on by the Asssad regime which originally opposed them as violations of its sovereignty and against international law. Syrian minister for national reconciliation, Ali Haidar, praised the attacks although Syria was still watching developments with caution: "As for the raids in Syria, I say that what has happened so far is proceeding in the right direction in terms of informing the Syrian government and by not targeting Syrian military installations and not targeting civilians.Notification of the Syrian government happened. Confirmation that they would not target Syrian military installations, and confirmation they would not target civilians happened." Civilians are not typically targeted in any event but are just collateral damage.
 Rebel groups of all stripes condemned the bombings. The Syrian Revolutionaries Front, a major secular coalition in the north-west of Syria that drove ISIS out of Idlib in January along with other rebel groups condemned the bombings claiming:"You help Bashar" Although bombing strikes targeted Idlib there are no IS forces there any more. One of the first condemnations of the strikes was by Harak Hazm an FSA militia operating mostly in Hama and numbering about 7,000:“The Hazem Movement rejects the external intervention of the US Coalition, which launched its first airstrikes on Tuesday in the governorates of Deir el Zour, Raqqa, al Hasaka, Aleppo, Idlib and Homs, with 11 civilians killed in rural Idlib province and five others in rural Homs province, as well as fighters from Jabhat al Nusra and the ISIS.These air attacks amount to *an attack on national sovereignty* and work to *undermine the Syrian revolution...We of the Hazem Movement hereby reaffirm our full commitment to the principles of the revolution, and emphasize that *our actions are guided solely by revolutionary principles and national interest, not by the demands of the international coalition...The only beneficiaries from the US coalition’s military intervention will be the Assad regime,.."
There have been demonstrations against the bombings in many rebel areas. While many are in support of the Nusra Front there are others which even express sympathy with the Islamic State: The enclosed You Tube video shows damage in bombings of Al Nusra Front positions: The only clear support for the bombings among rebel groups was the group supported by the west and Gulf state the Syrian Opposition Coalition(SOC) and the Supreme Military Command(SMC). The latter group supported "all earnest national forces and free international forces who are fighting terrorism but said that this should begin with attacking "the Assad Gang" whom the group claimed created the Islamic State.
 The aim of the US may to be to weaken or eliminate rebel groups it does not favor even though they are fighting cooperatively along with other rebel groups against Assad. The type of force that they will train will play the role of the Sons of Iraq in Iraq who were paid by the US government to fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq. This worked as long as the US continued to foot the bill. It may not work in Syria. The main rebel groups see radicals as allies as long as they work together against Assad. Destroying rebel's allies will not win any friends among the majority of the rebels even moderates. The ultimate aim of US policy may not be to defeat the Assad regime but to create a situation where there are more pro-western moderate rebels but who will be willing to negotiate with a war-weary and weakened Assad regime. Assad will be convinced to step aside and there will be a political settlement with the new government committed to fighting radical jihadists throughout Syria. Much of the material in this article derives from a long and very interesting article plus many links by Michael Karadjis from the University of Western Sydney to be found here.