US Central Command believes that, on Saturday, an airstrike using a precision guided munition killed the “senior al Qaeda terror consultant and foreign fighter facilitator known as ‘Sheik,’ ” who was in a house in Ubaydi in western Iraq. Officials think the Sheik was in the area to confer with Abu Islam, another top al Qaeda figure killed in a recent airstrike. Connecting the dots: A USAF F-16 on Saturday flew a pre-planned strike, firing one GBU-38. It was the only preplanned airstrike noted for that day. Bingo.
An important U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS command and control plane was among the aircraft damaged in a March 27 Iranian missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.