Fighters

The Air National Guard is pushing Congress to boost fighter numbers as it seeks to modernize its aging inventory. With the Air Force at large feeling the effects of years of underinvestment in new fighters, and with China presenting a massive pacing challenge, the move is the latest effort to ensure that the service can keep up in terms of numbers and capability.

According to a report from Air & Space Forces Magazine, Air National Guard adjutants general from more than 20 states sent a letter to Congress last week that requests multiyear funding for the acquisition of between 72 and 100 new fighters each year.

These numbers would be a significant hike compared with recent years: not since 1998 has the Air Force bought more than 72 new fighters in a single year.

“The United States Air Force is the oldest, the smallest, and the least ready in its 78-year history,” the letter states. “We must build a fighting force that will win.”

Specifically, the letter urges the minimum annual purchases of the 48 F-35As and 24 F-15EXs, with a preferred goal of 72 F-35As and 36 F-15EXs.

While the letter was signed by Air National Guard leaders, these totals would be expected to furnish units of the Active, Guard, and Reserve components.

By comparison, the Air Force requested funding for 48 F-35As in Fiscal Year 2024, followed by 42 in 2025, 24 in 2026, and 38 in the proposed 2027 budget.

The Fiscal Year 2027 budget request also includes funding for the purchase of 10 F-35Bs and 37 F-35Cs for the Marine Corps and the Navy, which is already a notable uptick in planned acquisitions. At the same time, the F-35 program has faced worrisome delays in work on a new radar, as well as a host of other critical upgrades.

For the F-15EX, budget documents show the service requested 24 aircraft in 2024, 18 in 2025, 21 in 2026, and 24 in 2027.

A sustained annual buy of even 24 F-15EXs would represent an acceleration over current production plans for the Eagle II, after the Fiscal Year 2026 budget request increased the program of record from 98 to 129 aircraft, including funding for 21 jets in a single year. In its latest budget request, the Air Force provides no details about whether there may be any new changes to the planned total fleet size for the F-15EX.

One of those who signed the letter is Brig. Gen. Shannon Smith, head of the Idaho Air National Guard, who told Air & Space Forces Magazine that, “We are burning these jets and the airmen over time to support the joint force to accomplish the president’s goals with Epic Fury in this conflict with Iran.”

On top of the demands of combat operations, Brig. Gen. Smith warned that the Air National Guard fighter fleet is rapidly aging, meaning that “Most of the money will go to keep them flying. In a few years, they’ll be struggling to be flyable, let alone be relevant.”

While plans are in place to replace A-10s and F-15Cs, even older F-35As will need replacement before too long, Smith added. More urgent is the looming requirement to supersede the more numerous F-16s.

In total, the Air National Guard has 24 fighter squadrons, 11 of which have already received new fighters or are planned to. While some Guard F-16 units have transitioned to the F-35, there is no plan in place for the Guard’s remaining 13 Viper squadrons. Taken together, the Guard’s inventory constitutes close to half of all combat-coded F-16s.

In the past, thought has been given to a new light fighter, to balance the more costly and capable F-35 and, now, the F-47, although that would be extremely costly and take years. Another option would be to start buying new F-16 Block 70/72 jets, although the production line is already burdened by multiple export orders.

Even if Congress supports the Air National Guard chiefs’ recommendations and the budget is available, getting new jets on ramps will be far from easy.

As well as boosting capabilities and ‘combat mass,’ new fighters bring other advantages in terms of reduced maintenance demands, easier access to spare parts, longer airframe life, and overall higher availability.

The issue of spare parts is a critical one. Back in 2024, we looked at how, by the Air Force’s own estimates, hundreds of its aircraft are at risk of being left grounded due to a lack of spares, thanks to a $1.5-billion shortfall in its budget request.

However, meeting the aim of 72 to 100 new fighters each year would demand a significant uptake in production capacity, which is already stretched. With that in mind, the Air National Guard projects it could still take 10 to 15 years to re-equip units now flying older fighters.

One option to re-equip Guard and Reserve units would be to cascade fighters down from the Active component, but Air National Guard chiefs warn against this, too, since it only pushes recapitalization with new fighters further down the line.

What is unclear is how the Air Force’s plans for the F-47 sixth-generation fighter might play into this.

In 2023, then-Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said that the service was working around a future force planning construct that included 200 of the sixth-gen combat jets.

At this point, however, there are still questions about how exactly the F-47 will fit into the Air Force’s future force structure and how many of the jets the service might actually procure. The jet was originally planned as a replacement for the F-22, but that appears to have changed, or is at least in limbo. It is by no means clear how long the F-22 will be around after the F-47 is introduced, but if the F-47 is delayed, it could come at the end of the F-22’s service life. If the Air Force intends to operate the two at the same time, at least for the earlier part of the F-47’s career, but delays in fielding it occur, this could also open up another gap in the combat mass.

Another factor is the service’s emerging plans for fielding its future fleets of Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones, which are being designed from the ground up to work in close concert with current and future crewed jets. In the past, the Air Force has signaled that it wants to buy over 1,000 CCAs. However, this number is understood to cover multiple CCA increments, with Increment 1 being procured in numbers between 100 and 150 units, at least to start with.

Ultimately, the CCA effort aims to drastically improve the tactical jet fleet combat mass, which could offset the dwindling fighter force, and active-duty F-35 and F-22 units will get them first. Thereafter, they could be quickly rolled out to fourth-generation jets, too. On the other hand, the CCA concept still has much to prove and is not without risk.

In the background to all this are the concerns within the U.S. military leadership at large about the significant advances being made by the Chinese military and, in this case, its air arms. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force is rapidly expanding and modernizing at a scale that threatens to surpass the United States in both numbers and capability. Warning signs of a massive fighter expansion include an apparent new J-35 factory and the many Chinese CCA programs.

As long as the U.S. government continues to procure aircraft at comparatively slower rates, China has the opportunity to race ahead and is already producing advanced fighters in large quantities, creating a growing imbalance in the Indo-Pacific region.

Clearly, there are very many factors at play, not least budgetary. However, in making their case to Congress, Air National Guard bosses are once again underscoring the continued demand for crewed combat jets within the service, and at the same time, highlighting some of the challenges in keeping the fighter force at the top of its game.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Ex-paramilitary group, set up to fight ISIL, but now integrated in Iraqi forces, blames US and Israel.

Air strikes targeting Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) have killed three fighters and two Iraqi police, as the US-Israeli war on Iran continued to spill over Iraq’s eastern border.

An Iraqi security source told Al Jazeera that Saturday’s double-bombing of the PMF’s headquarters near northern Iraq’s Kirkuk Airport also wounded two other fighters and six Iraqi soldiers.

A statement from the ex-paramilitary coalition, which is now integrated into the regular Iraqi army, blamed the United States and Israel, saying that those killed had been “subjected to a treacherous Zionist-American” attack.

Separately, the Reuters news agency quoted security sources as saying that two members of the Iraqi police were killed in an air strike targeting the PMF in Mosul, about 105 miles (170km) northwest of Kirkuk.

Reporting from Baghdad, Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque said that Iraq was turning into an “expanding battleground” in the crisis, which began on February 28 with US-Israeli strikes on Iran and now threatens to engulf the region in a protracted conflict.

Since the war broke out, pro-Iran armed groups within the PMF, which was formed on the orders of Najaf-based Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in 2014 to fight ISIL (ISIS), have claimed responsibility for attacks on US interests in Iraq and beyond and have themselves been targeted.

Haque said the PMF takes its orders from Baghdad, but some factions are loyal to Tehran.

“That makes it very difficult for Baghdad to hold all of this together. Up until the war, the government successfully brought everybody around the table [and] was able to manage the different factions,” he said.

But as the war expands into Iraq, Baghdad has found itself “on a tightrope” between the US and Iran, said Haque.

“They can’t afford to turn their back on their biggest neighbour, Iran. Nor can they afford to turn their back on the United States,” he said, noting the economic and security ties between Baghdad and both countries.

Saturday also saw two drones targeting an airbase serving as a hub for US and coalition forces near Erbil airport in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Haque said the US C-RAM air defence system was activated and intercepted the drones.

Iraq attacks ‘a worrying development’: Macron

In parallel, Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported a drone attack on the house of Nechirvan Barzani, president of the Kurdish region, in the western town of Duhok.

Masrour Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq, condemned “in the strongest terms” the assault.

“Once again, we call on the federal government to act on its responsibility, bring these outlaw criminals to justice, and curb the continued terrorist attacks carried out by these groups,” he said in a statement.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on X that he had spoken to Barzani, calling increased attacks in Iraq a “worrying development”.

In other developments, the Iraqi Ministry of Defence said on Saturday that a drone had crashed into the southern Majnoon oilfield “without detonating, causing no damage or injuries”.

Police source tells Al Jazeera the attack hits positions of the Iran-aligned PMF, which the US has increasingly targeted.

An aerial attack on a military base in western Iraq’s Anbar province has killed seven fighters and wounded 13, according to Iraq’s Ministry of Defence.

The strikes on Wednesday targeted the military healthcare clinic at the base in Habbaniyah, according to the ministry. It called the attack “a heinous crime” that violated “all international laws and norms”.

An Iraqi police source told Al Jazeera the attack targeted positions of the Iraqi military’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a paramilitary force that includes some Iran-aligned brigades and reportedly shares the base with members of Iraq’s regular army.

“What we understand from the military here is that air strikes were carried out and then further strikes carried out on that same position,” said Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig, reporting from Baghdad. He said it appeared to be the first time the PMF was hit alongside the broader Iraqi military.

Iraq has denounced the attack as the country has been dragged into the United States-Israeli war on Iran. On Tuesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s office said Baghdad would summon the Iranian and US ambassadors over the recent strikes.

‘Right to respond’

A security official quoted by the AFP news agency said the strike occurred at the same base that suffered a deadly attack the day before.

Tuesday’s strike, which the PMF blamed on the US, was the deadliest in Iraq since the start of the war on Iran on February 28, It killed 15 fighters, including a commander.

The attack prompted Iraq’s government to grant the PMF a “right to respond” to any attack against it, a position Baghdad reaffirmed on Wednesday.

“We reserve our full right to take all necessary measures to respond to this aggression within the established legal frameworks,” the Defence Ministry said.

Since the war began, pro-Iran armed groups have claimed responsibility for attacks on US interests in Iraq and across the region while strikes have also targeted these groups, including at government-linked positions.

The US Department of Defense has acknowledged that combat helicopters have carried out strikes against pro-Iran armed groups in Iraq during the current conflict.

Baig said the latest strikes demonstrate “an escalation in terms of the PMF being targeted”.

“Increasingly, Iraq is becoming a battlefield between Iraqi armed factions and the United States,” he said.

Air strikes come hours after pro-Iran armed group Kataib Hezbollah announces conditional suspension of US embassy attacks.

Air strikes have killed two fighters from the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) in northern Iraq, the paramilitary group says from one of the fronts in the sprawling war engulfing the Middle East.

The two attacks targeted PMF positions early on Thursday in the Nineveh region, where Mosul city is located, and a military airport in Salah al-Din province, according to statements from the PMF, a predominantly Shia group that is part of Iraq’s security apparatus and includes several groups aligned with Iran.

The PMF blamed the attack on Israel and the United States. Iraq has been drawn into the US-Israeli war on Iran, now in its third week.

The PMF was formed in 2014 as a volunteer force supporting Iraqi security forces in the fight against ISIL (ISIS).

Strikes have targeted Iran-backed groups, which in turn have claimed near-daily attacks on US interests in Iraq and across the region.

Elsewhere, a fire broke out at a naval base in southern Iraq when it was hit by a drone overnight. An Iraqi security source told Al Jazeera that a drone crashed into a water treatment station at the Umm Qasr naval base near the border with Kuwait.

Footage from the scene circulating on social media and verified by Al Jazeera showed flames and smoke rising from the site.

US embassy attacks to be suspended

Hours before the attacks on PMF fighters, the pro-Iranian armed group Kataib Hezbollah said its secretary-general had “issued orders to suspend operations targeting the US embassy in Baghdad for a period of five days”.

Designated by Washington as a “terrorist organisation”, Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah listed several conditions of the suspension, including Israel ceasing its bombardment of the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Kataib Hezbollah also demanded “a commitment to refrain from bombing residential areas in Baghdad and other provinces”.

Whenever “the enemy violates” the truce, “the response will be immediate”, the group said, warning of more strikes after the five-day period.

The US embassy has been targeted by drone and rocket attacks several times in recent days. Air defences have intercepted most of the projectiles.

The embassy is in the Green Zone, a heavily fortified district in central Baghdad that houses Iraqi government institutions and embassies.

A US diplomatic and logistics centre at Baghdad International Airport that houses military personnel has also been regularly targeted.

Despite the miserable weather, it wasn’t quite a storm in Dublin on Thursday, but one is quietly brewing for Saturday night when James ‘Jazza’ Dickens puts his WBA super-featherweight world title on the line against Anthony Cacace in the city’s 3 Arena.

As is the way, there were no bold statements or gimmicks from either at Thursday’s final press conference as their no-frills approach to the fight game ensured the exchanges were complimentary rather than confrontational.

Described as Cinderella Man v Cinderella Man, the pair have travelled rough terrain to get here and that is what sets this up perfectly.

Both have had their setbacks in boxing, with 34-year-old Dickens falling short in world title fights at super-bantamweight and featherweight before getting his hands on the gold when upgraded from the ‘interim’ title he won against Albert Batyrgaziev last summer.

Cacace, 37, endured years of disappointment before stopping Joe Cordina for the IBF version in May 2024, opting to vacate in order to face Leigh Wood in Nottingham last year.

“Until that first bell, all of this [build-up] is just nonsense and we have to sit here and talk,” said Liverpool’s Dickens.

“We just like to fight, but this is part of the business. I think we both just want to get in there and get the respect, throw some punches and shake hands after.”

Cacace is cut from the same cloth, with the Belfast man fully aware of what it has taken the champion to get here considering he has travelled a similar road.

“There is no point sitting here and saying ‘I’m going to do this and that’ because we are fighters and one punch can change everything,” Cacace said.

“I know Jazza has a big heart, same as me. We’re pretty similar in terms of career, so I fully respect Jazza for what he’s done in his career. He’s here for the same reason as me – to put food on the table for his family and that’s the bottom line.”