UK fighter jets conduct joint exercise with US, Israeli aircraft – likely target Iran

US pro-Israel lobby group praises UK-launched bombing exercise believed to be preparation for attack on Iran

RAF fighter jets have taken part in joint bombing exercises over western Asia with the US Central Command (CENTCOM) and F-15 and F-35 fighters of the Israeli air force, believed to be preparation for attacks on Iran.

The 4 March exercise – the third in two weeks – involved giant US B-52H ‘Stratofortress’ bombers that took off from Fairford RAF base in England and conducted the exercise in CENTCOM’s ‘area of responsibility’, which comprises the ‘Middle East’ and parts of southern Asia.

The latest exercise follows a live-weapon drop on 20 February that the US military said involved B-52s conducting “multiple missions over the Arabian Peninsula and Red Sea”. With typically Orwellian language, the Pentagon said that these missions ‘promote security and stability’ in the region. In the past twelve months the US has used the B-52s, along with B-1 and B-2 bombers, to bomb Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

The so-called ‘Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ (FDD), a US Israel-lobby group originally founded as ‘Emet’, the Hebrew word for ‘truth’, to “provide education to enhance Israel’s image in North America”, praised the bombing exercises but called for more and bigger exercises with specific targets mimicking Iran’s nuclear facilities, as well as other exercises with US fighters accompanying Israeli bombers. One FDD analyst said:

Israel demonstrated twice last year that it has the military capability to reach Iran and target the regime’s nuclear sites. Coupled with American military support, Iran should be concerned that its prized nuclear program can be significantly degraded, perhaps destroyed. Israeli and American warnings against the regime racing to a nuclear bomb are not mere rhetoric. When President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu say Iran will ‘never’ obtain a nuclear bomb, they mean it.

The UK’s collusion in Israel’s impunity and aggression against its neighbours is well known, with hundreds of spy flights over Gaza feeding intelligence to the Israeli regime even during the recent ceasefire and UK fighters helping to shoot down Iranian attacks retaliating for Israeli assassinations and bombing attacks – and Keir Starmer’s eagerness to act as a US and Israel ‘poodle’ and war-crimes apologist is self-evident.

But the use of a UK airbase as a launching point, and UK fighters as escorts, for preparation for direct heavy bombing attacks against one of the few nations capable of resisting the Netanyahu regime’s ‘greater Israel’ expansion ambitions – and one whose geographical position and resources mean it could easily trigger a crippling global oil and economic crisis– is chilling.

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