The use of AC-130s in places like Fallujah, urban settings where insurgents may be among crowded populations of noncombatants, has been criticized by human rights groups. In Vietnam, for example, they were deployed against North Vietnamese supply convoys along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, where the Air Force claimed to have destroyed 10,000 trucks over several years. The gunships were designed primarily for battlefield use to place saturated fire on massed troops. The plane’s latest version, the AC-130U, known as “Spooky,” also carries Gatling gun-type 20 mm cannon. The left-side ports of the AC-130s, 98-foot-long planes that can slowly circle over a target for long periods, bristle with a potent arsenal – 40 mm cannon that can fire 120 rounds per minute, and big 105 mm cannon, normally a field artillery weapon. Basing the planes inside Iraq will cut hours off their transit time to reach suspected targets. attack that took the western city of Fallujah from insurgents. In November 2004, air-to-ground fire from AC-130s supported the U.S. The four-engine gunships, whose home base is Hurlburt Field in Florida, have operated over Iraq before, flying from airfields elsewhere in the region. Military officials warned that disclosing the location of the aircraft’s new base would violate security provisions of rules governing media access to U.S. But the plan’s general outline was confirmed by other Air Force officers, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the subject. The Iraq-based special forces command controlling the AC-130s, the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, said it would have no comment on the deployment. Air Force has begun moving heavily armed AC-130 airplanes – the lethal “flying gunships” of the Vietnam War – to a base in Iraq as commanders search for new tools to counter the Iraqi resistance, The Associated Press has learned.Īn AP reporter saw the first of the turboprop-driven aircraft after it landed at the airfield this week.
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