An American national security official has outlined Washington’s war strategies for Syria, saying the US administration is preparing to use B-2 and B-52 bombers for a potential military strike against that country, ABC News reported on Friday.
According to the report, President Barack Obama’s national security team is preparing for a “significantly larger military attack than most had anticipated.”
The unnamed official told ABC News the military action are likely to do more damage to the Syrian government in a couple of days “than the Syrian rebels have done in nearly two years of civil war.”
That’s a lot of damage, considering the Syrian army has been pushed out of about half the country.
The air campaign which is expected to last at least two days will potentially include an aerial bombardment of missiles and long range bombs fired from B-2 and B-52 bombers flying from the United States, ABC News reported. That attack will be combined with a relentless assault of Tomahawk missiles fired from four Navy destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean.
There are 200 missiles altogether on those ships, and, according to the official, they intend to put most of them to use.
The ABC News report presents a different plan than President Barack Obama’s promise of a “limited attack that will warn Assad against using chemical weapons again.”
At this point, Obama does not appear to have the majority in Congress needed to pass the decision to attack in the House of Representatives, since the majority in both houses finds it difficult to support the Syrian rebels, who are proving to be easily as cruel as the Syrian government.
A different US official told CNN about the long-range bombers delivering a much heavier attack than originally anticipated.
“You can employ stand-off weapons from an aircraft, just as easily as from a ship or submarine. Aerial assets can be used from a distance,” he explained.
Other reports also indicate that the US military has been preparing to employ exceptionally large firepower.
The Wall Street Journal reported that “the revised options under development include the use of Air Force bombers to supplement US destroyers in the Mediterranean.”
The B-2 and B-52 bombers are equipped with joint air-to-surface missiles, designed to destroy both mobile and fixed targets. The missiles’ primary advantage is that they allow pilots to operate outside the lethal range of most hostile air defense systems.