US puts boots on the ground as Israel’s quagmire deepens

Muhammad Amin
Troops on the ground! It’s how Washington’s Vietnam quagmire started – when it sent in ground troops to protect long-range bombers launching from the south against Hanoi.
Fast-forward to 2024, and 100 US troops are now headed to Israel to operate a super-hi-tech missile defence system to shoot down cheap, slow-moving Hezbollah drones made mainly of plastic.
It’s the first, public acknowledgment that America’s military boots are now joining Israeli ones in enforcing the Gaza genocide and helping its efforts to enmesh the whole of Arabia in a regional conflagration.
Getting boots and hands dirty
News reports below the radar have been whispering that US and British special forces killers have been operating in the Gaza cauldron for months now.
Tuesday’s arrival of 100 specialists to operate America’s famous Terminal High Altitude Air Defence System (THAAD) signals Washinton is preparing to get its boots and hands dirty. THAAD missiles carry no warhead and instead uses its high speed on impact to destroy incoming missiles on reentry, Wikipedia says.
THAAD has had a checkered history, with many test failures and is unproven against hypersonic missiles that can change course on reentry.
But it’s not just the upper atmosphere where Israeli’s allies are climbing in. They’ve been flying secret cargoes into Israel for months. And they’re getting busier as the blood-soaked days grind by.
Declassified UK reports Tuesday the number of secret UK flights between Cyprus and Israel servicing America’s special forces have doubled since Britain’s Labour government took office on July 5.
‘Workhorse of death’
Thirteen flights originating from Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, have headed to Britain’s Akrotiri air base in Cyprus before landing in Israel, Declassfied UK reports.
Crucially, all the planes were Airbus C-235s, described as the workhorse of parachute squadrons. Each plan can carry 48 paratroopers. Two of the latest flights were for the first time clearly marked as “US Air Force”.
Previous flights featured planes without any identifying markings or serial numbers.
What the flights carried – human or cargo – remains undisclosed. But Fort Bragg, now renamed Fort Liberty, is home to the 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne). It’s America’s biggest military base, housing 50 000 troops, that “assigns, equips, trains, certifies and validates (special forces) soldiers and units to conduct global operations”.
The 427th Special Operations Squadron falls under Airborne’s command at Fort Bragg and has been described as Washington’s “most secretive squadron”.
The air force replied to Declassified queries, saying the unit supports “training requirements … for infiltration and exfiltration”, a reference to covert operations behind enemy lines, Declassified says.
Stiff upper lip
“The majority of flights stayed in Israel for around two hours before flying back to Akrotiri. It is not known what they were dropping off or picking up. It has, however, previously been revealed that the US is using Akrotiri to deliver weapons to Israel,” Declassified says.
Downing Street is keeping mum. It has “long refused to give any details of US use of British territory to support the Israeli assault on Gaza”.
Declassified says: “The new information could further implicate British ministers in war crimes in Gaza. In November 2023, a US military official revealed that American special forces were stationed in Israel and “actively helping the Israelis”.
International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan has requested arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister Yoav Gallant. The World Court is also investigating Israel for what it has called a “plausible” genocide in Gaza.
Declassified reports: “Under Starmer, numerous US military transport flights have also arrived from Turkey and Germany. Four US military-operated C-130J Hercules have arrived from Adana, Turkey, under the new Labour administration. It is possible they were carrying weapons for Israel.
“Adana is home to the Incirlik airbase, a major US facility with 5 000 American personnel. The Hercules can carry 128 soldiers and 19 600kg of cargo.”
Britain’s ministry of defence tried to brush off the allegations and warnings of complicity in war crimes, saying it was “standard practice” to open Britain’s facilities to its allies, adding they must be “in line with UK policy for evacuation/humanitarian purposes only”.
The Pentagon refused to comment.