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 defense intelligence community has tried three times in the past decade to build a “common intelligence picture”—a single data stream providing the information that commanders need to make decisions about the battlefield. The first two attempts failed. But officials say things are different today.