The Air Force informs us that it is no longer providing the daily airpower summaries that we used to generate our Air Sorties in Southwest Asia table, which has been a popular component of the Daily Report column. Accordingly, the table in Wednesday’s column, with data current through Dec. 19, 2010, is the last one under this format. We will continue to work with the Air Force to illustrate the contributions of airpower to the fight in some similar or new format.
U.S. Southern Command recently announced its first lethal strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in two months, and the first under a newly formed permanent counter-cartel task force. The U.S. is also reportedly planning to transfer MQ-9 drones to Colombia to bolster its counter-cartel efforts.