THAT DIDN’T TAKE LONG: Once Turkey decided to send its tanks and troops across the border, Islamic State fighters beat a hasty retreat from the Syrian border town of Jarabulus, its last bastion along Syria’s northern border. Syrian rebels and U.S. airpower were also part of the offensive that took less than 24 hours. The U.S. military says the fact ISIS didn’t stay and fight shows the terrorist group’s diminished combat capacity, and helps lay the groundwork for an eventual assault on Raqqa, the Islamic State’s putative capital in Syria.
But it’s a little more complicated than that. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made it clear yesterday that the liberation of Jarabulus was as much about blocking the Kurds from stitching together territory as it was about defeating ISIS. Vice President Joe Biden, who was dispatched to Ankara on a fence-mending mission to calm Turkish anger over what many Turks see as U.S. acquiescence to last month’s failed military coup, was strongly supportive of Erdogan’s position, saying the U.S. will not abide a separate Kurdish entity in northern Syria. “No corridor. Period. No separate entity on the border. A united Syria,” Biden said at a joint news conference with the Turkish prime minister. As of this morning, Kurdish fighters are reported to have moved east across the Euphrates, apparently heeding the blunt warning from the U.S.
THAT TOOK A WHILE: After 52 years, the government of Colombia and the FARC rebel group have reached an agreement to end their five decades of fighting. The deal, which comes after four years of negotiations, must still be approved by voters in a plebiscite. Colombia would be required to implement aggressive land reforms, reform its anti-narcotics strategy and expand the state into rural parts of the country. More than 220,000 people have died during the fighting and 5 million others have been forced out of their homes.
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BRRRRRRT: Rep. Martha McSally and Sen. John McCain both praised a GAO report released Wednesday that found the Air Force had not done its homework in its plan to retire the A-10 early. “The nonpartisan GAO has concluded what we’ve been arguing for years: there is no justification for the Air Force to prematurely retire the A-10 fleet, and doing so could leave the military with a serious capability gap our military needs to confront complex security challenges around the world,” McCain said in a statement.
Supporters of the plane in Congress have pointed to its success in the campaign against the Islamic State and have repeatedly prohibited the Air Force from retiring them, a move the Air Force says will give it the funds it needs to bring the F-35 online.
The beloved Warthog was out on a mission on Wednesday, in fact. American A-10s and F-16s helped Turkish and vetted Syrian opposition forces on the Jarabulus operation, according to a defense official. The mission, dubbed Euphrates Shield, even has its own Twitter account so you can get battlefield updates from your desk in D.C.
SHIFT COLD: One of the ways the U.S. military tries to avoid civilian casualties is a technique called “shift cold.” That’s where after a laser-guided weapon is released, the air crew watches as it heads to its its target, and if something changes, such as a civilian vehicle enters the frame, the weapon is redirected at the last minute to a field, or other benign location. It’s a tricky maneuver, and isn’t always possible. That’s basically the scenario the U.S. Central Command says took place in a strikes near Raqqa, Syria Tuesday. “After the weapon was already dropped, a non-military vehicle drove into the target area and those inside the vehicle may have been killed,” a CENTCOM statement said. As with any credible report of civilian casualties, a task force will decide whether a full investigation is needed, and whether the pilots had any chance to “shift cold.”
ATTACK IN KABUL: A “small number” of U.S. forces were helping Afghan troops handle the aftermath of an attack at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul on Wednesday that killed two people. Students and teachers trapped inside the university for a few hours reported hearing gunshots and an explosion. It’s not the first time violence at the university has made news. Earlier this month, a gunman kidnapped two foreign professors near the university. MSNBC has an explainer of why the university is a frequent target for terrorists.
HARASSMENT AT SEA: Four Iranian patrol boats came within 300 yards of the U.S. destroyer Nitze in the Strait of Hormuz, prompting the American ship to fire its flares and alter its course to avoid the boats. An official said the American sailors tried to contact the Iranians on the radio, but got no answer. It’s another case of what the U.S. Navy says is unsafe and unprofessional seamanship by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels.
McCAIN’S CHALLENGE: Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain’s primary election is less than a week away, and the latest polls look favorable. A CNN/ORC poll of Arizona voters shows the 79-year-old senator leading his primary challenger state representative Kelli Ward 55 to 29 percent, as well as his expected Democratic opponent Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick 52 to 39 percent. CNN reports the poll found Donald Trump with a 5-point lead to Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton in the state. McCain has been in the Senate since 1986.
CAPTION CONTESTED, CORRECTED: The Marine Corps has updated its official records to correct the identities of two Marines who raised the first flag over Mt. Suribachi. A board found that Pharmacist’s Mate 2nd Class John Bradley and Pvt. Philip Ward — not Pfc. Louis Charlo and Pfc. James Michels — took part in the flag raising. Earlier this year, the Marines also corrected the identity of one the men in the iconic photo of the second flag raising, which inspired the Iwo Jima memorial in Rosslyn.
US ID’S KIA: The Army on Wednesday identified the soldier killed this week in Helmand province, Afghanistan, by an improvised explosive device as Staff Sgt. Matthew Thompson. The 28-year-old Green Beret who enlisted in the Army in 2011 and had previously deployed to Iraq.
BLAME GOP, NOT RUSSIA: The White House says Republicans in Congress, and not Russia, are responsible for the recent hacks in the U.S., Rudy Takala reports. “The United States has made important progress in strengthening our cyber security and that’s because the president has made it a priority,” spokesman Josh Earnest said at his daily press briefing. “I would say a significant source of disappointment has been a failure on the part of Congress to provide additional resources that could strengthen our cyber defenses. It’s Republicans in Congress who’ve been the chief obstacle to this progress.”
SHOW US THE EVIDENCE: Turkey has failed to connect the dots between the failed coup last month and Fethullah Gulen, the cleric now living in Pennsylvania who Ankara wants sent back to Turkey, Nicole Duran writes. The paperwork that formally requests extradition alleges criminal behavior on Gulen’s part, all of which predate the attempted coup, said a White House official who was traveling with Biden to Ankara. None of the information shows even a possible connection between Gulen and the coup perpetrators, the official said.
While he was there, Biden got a first-hand look at the damage to the country’s parliament building from the failed coup and compared it to 9/11, Susan Crabtree reports. “This is devastating, can you imagine if this happened at home?” he asked. “Can you imagine what the American public would be saying or doing?”
ABOUT THAT RED LINE: Despite new accusations that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime held onto some of the chemical weapons are supposedly relinquishing them, the White House is standing by its decision to negotiate the deal rather than attacking the country, Susan Crabtree writes. The deal, spokesman Earnest said, “made the world safer. … It eliminated a significant amount of proliferation risk. When you have a country overrun by extremists,” he added, “it’s not a good combination” to have an abundance of chemical weapons in the same area.
Hours later, reports surface that the U.N. determined that Assad gassed civilians. Nicole Duran has the story: “The investigation, done in conjunction with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, found that Assad has repeatedly used chlorine as a weapon. Investigators also confirmed that the self-proclaimed Islamic State used mustard gas on Syrians last year.”
DON’T PANIC, IT’S JUST A DRILL: The Pentagon Force Protection Agency is staging a simulated helicopter crash and mass casualty exercise this morning. It’s over at the Mall entrance, far from where visitors enter the building, and of course where the helicopters and V-22s routinely take off and land. So if you see see a lot of flashing lights and activity between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., don’t worry. It’s just an exercise for first responders.
SHE’S A BEAUT, CLARK: The destroyer Zumwalt, everybody’s favorite floating artist rendering, has completed sea trials. Check out the video here.
THE RUNDOWN
Washington Times: Office of No Threat Assessment
Navy Times: CNO: New Stingray drone will be a tanker
Defense News: DoD Presses On In Pursuit of Laser Weapons
Politico: Pentagon fails to convince Congress it’s an easy terror target
Defense News: Army Could Use Virtual Training Devices More Effectively: GAO
New York Times: World’s Largest Aircraft Crashes, Gently, in 2nd Test Flight
Defense One: How Obama Is Enabling the Next President to Launch Illegal Wars
Military Times: Retired officers rally to support McCain in election battle
Air Force Times: Turkish, Russian officials downplay reports Russia might operate out of Incirlik air base
Reuters: North Korea’s Kim Declares Sub Missile Launch ‘Greatest Success’
UPI: Russia investing in new ships, naval bases ‘to project its power’
Associated Press: Volatile mix in Syria war puts new strain on U.S. strategy
Military Times: Army general testifies no one swayed him in Bergdahl case
Military.com: ‘We’re All Dirty’: Inside the Navy’s Corpsman Cheating Scandal
Military Times: Japan, China, South Korea unite in condemning North Korea missile test
War on the Rocks: Red teaming the rebalance: Is the United States good for Asia?
Daily Beast: Jailing Jihadis for Destroying Treasures
Fox News: Mississippi man who tried to join ISIS with fiancee gets 8 years in prison
New York Times: How Many Guns Did the U.S. Lose Track of in Iraq and Afghanistan? Hundreds of Thousands.
Calendar
THURSDAY | AUGUST 25
10:30 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, speaks at CSIS about the future of military innovation and joint capabilities. csis.org
MONDAY | AUGUST 29
10 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. The Brookings Institution hosts a panel discussion on the defense budget and overseas contingency operations spending. brookings.edu
1 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Government officials from the U.S. and the Netherlands will discuss how to improve information sharing between allies to better counter terrorism. csis.org
TUESDAY | AUGUST 30
11 a.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. A panel of experts discusses the defense items Congress must address in the remaining months of 2016. heritage.org
