Coalition aircraft conducted 61 close air support missions in Afghanistan on June 17, Air Forces Central said in a release. In Iraq, there were 25 CAS missions on that day. The strikes in Afghanistan included F-15Es pounding enemy combatants in the vicinity of Bari Kowt with 2,000-pound joint direct attack munitions and a B-1B bomber hitting enemy forces near Musa Qal’eh with 500-pound JDAMs.
The United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force has unveiled a new electronic warfare drone designed to fly with fighter jets into contested airspace, including alongside its fleet of F-35s. RAF says it plans to develop models that draw on the U.S. Air Force’s approach of mating unmanned systems with crewed platforms.