Militants Fire Rockets At U.S. Navy

[RiverRat]

Rockets kill 1, narrowly miss US ships in Jordan
Fri Aug 19, 2005 9:28 AM ET166

AMMAN (Reuters) - Rockets were fired at two U.S. warships in Jordan's Aqaba port on Friday, but missed their targets and hit a warehouse and a hospital, killing a Jordanian soldier, and the Israeli port of Eilat.

A Jordanian security source said authorities were searching for three men in the Katyusha missile attack, which was launched from an industrial warehouse area near the entrance to the city.

"We are searching for a Syrian and two Iraqis who are in Aqaba and used Kuwaiti number plates," the source said. Another source said the warehouse from which the three rockets were launched had been leased a few days ago by three Iraqis and an Egyptian.

A group claiming links to al Qaeda, the Abdullah al-Azzam Brigades of the al Qaeda Organization in the Levant and Egypt, said in a statement it had carried out the attack.

The statement, which could not be authenticated, was carried on an Islamist Web site not often used by other groups which say they are linked to Osama bin Laden's network.

Jordanian security forces cordoned off Aqaba and its industrial zone, the sources said, but the port was operating as normal.

Immediately after the attack, the two U.S. amphibious assault ships, which had been on a joint training exercise with the Jordanian navy, weighed anchor and headed for the safety of open water.

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said "one or two" Katyusha rockets had fallen in the airport and hotel area of Eilat, which is about 9 km (5 miles) across the Red Sea from Aqaba, but no one was hurt.

The U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said one missile narrowly missed the USS Ashland, an amphibious warfare ship that is designed to transport Marines and to launch assault landing craft and helicopters.

"I can confirm that a rocket flew over the bow of USS Ashland and the rocket impacted in the roof of a warehouse. No sailors or marines were injured," Commander Jeff Breslau of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain told Reuters.

"It's pretty safe to conclude that they were probably trying to hit one or both of the ships," he said.

A Jordanian military source said Private Ahmad Alnajdawi, who had been standing guard at the warehouse, was killed.

The source said a total of three missiles, which are of a Soviet design, had been fired, hitting the warehouse and a military hospital in the city, and Eilat.

"Initial investigations show that the main target was the two American vessels ... Eilat does not appear to have been targeted nor any civilian Jordanian targets," said one security source.

LOGISTICS HUB

Breslau said the Ashland and sister amphibious ship the USS Kearsarge, both of which are based in Norfolk, Virginia, had immediately left the port following the attack.

"They'll be out to sea in the area and will decide what to do from there," he said.

The Kearsarge, which carries Harrier jump jets and about 2,000 personnel, serves as the command ship of an Amphibious Ready Group and was involved in the famed 1995 rescue of U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O'Grady after he was shot down over Bosnia.

A spokesman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, said the attack was the first on a U.S. vessel in the region since April 2004, when three U.S. servicemen were killed on the USS Firebolt while it was defending an Iraqi oil platform.

Oil climbed back above $64 after the Aqaba attack, although Jordan is not a crude oil exporter.

"The kneejerk reaction to this sort of headline is to think of the Middle East as a powder keg," said Deborah White, senior energy analyst at SG Commodities in Paris.

Jordanian Interior Minister Awni Yarfas said little damage had been caused to the warehouse in the port, which is a logistics hub for Iraq, used by the U.S. military and for moving commodities.

Mofaz told reporters Israel was cooperating with Jordan in the investigation into the attack.

"We still don't know who was behind this activity, but I am certain the Jordanians will do their best to prevent such incidents in the future as they have in the past," he said.

Jordan's Red Sea resort, once a sleepy port, has seen a surge in tourism and investment in recent years in part because it is seen as safe haven.

A Yemeni court sentenced to death last year two al Qaeda militants for the 2000 bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole which killed 17 sailors in the Yemeni port of Aden. It later commuted one of the defendant's term to 15 years jail.

Four other militants received jail terms of five to 10 years for the attack.

Just another scare? Or do you think they were really firing at our Navy and just missed? I think they were actually targeting our harbored boats, since they missed only by a few hundred feet.

[mmarshall]

I think it was a deliberate attack on the Kearsarge, knowing that tied up in port the ship was in perhaps its its most vulnerable condition.
While I am a licensed civilian pilot and Flight Procedures Specialist and not consider myself an expert on military air operations, I DO know that an aircraft carrier, even a small amphibious one like the Kearsarge (an Iwo-Jima-class ship) often has what is called a CAP or Combat Air Patrol, where radar and electronics-equipped aircraft or helicopters fly around the ship at altitude and keep an advance lookout and early-warning for for incoming missles or enemy aircraft, trying to pinpoint where the source of the attack came from. Armed fighter or attack-planes aloft with the warning aircraft are immediately vectored and sent to intercept enemy aircraft and fire if necessary or attack the ground base where the missiles came from. Since the Iwo-Jima-class carriers are too small for regular Navy / Marine fighters like the F-14 or F-18, with their catapult and arresting-gear requirements, thery carry armed helicopters and Marine Corps V / STOL Harrier jet attack-planes instead that can take off or land vertically or with a very short deck roll. If airborne CAP radar could have picked up the source of the rocket launchings, the Harriers could have made short work of it in nothing flat....they could immediately retaliate at 600 MPH with thousands of pounds of bombs and missiles. ( Unlikely, though, in a foreign port....see my next paragraph )..........
...........WHY did this not happen? I don't know the reason, but my guess is that because the ship was in port, many of its crew were on liberty or perhaps because the ship was in a foreign port, the Jordanian government would not allow U.S. air operations over the ship....the reasoning being that the ship's defense while in port was the responsibility of the Jordanian Air Force and Navy.
This is only an educated guess on my part, though.....and not necessarily fact.

[Lil4X]

I've seen and heard a number of people criticize the Navy for "turning tail and running" in this incident. More than one armchair admiral - one or two on the news channels - has indicated this was not the Navy's finest hour. I beg to differ. Considering the firepower that even a support ship can mount, doing so in or over a populated area is not advisable.

As a veteran of a couple of extended 9-month deployments to the Mediterranean in the weeks and months following the Six-Day War, I can certainly understand the actions of the Kearsarge and the Ashland. As mmarshall said quite correctly, warships are designed to fight at sea, not tied to a pier. They cannot very well mount an effective air defense while replenishing in port.

I served aboard an attack carrier that was, thanks to its size and draft required to anchor outside of foreign harbors - but there was another reason. Alongside a pier, you were a sitting duck. The usual drill for us was to approach our anchorage and as the anchor chains thundered down the hawsepipes, the familiar bosun's pipe would announce liberty call to commence in an hour. Well, once in the port of Piraeus (Athens), the anchor chains were let fly, but no liberty call . . . an odd silence interrupted the liberty party showering and dressing belowdecks for a night on the town. As the last links of the anchor chains rattled to a stop, the 1MC blared the "ALL HANDS" pipe, followed by the dreaded bugle call: "Now General Quarters, General Quarters - all hands man your battle stations. Set condition Zebra throughout the ship! . . . this is not a drill" Those of us with one foot in our dress whites, threw them back on the bunk and jumped into our dungarees. This was serious.

As the anchors were cut free, we swung back toward the open sea. Within only a few minutes the ship was buttoned up and the deck shuddering as the screws drove us out of the harbor at flank speed.. The ready CAP consisting of a pair of fighter aircraft launched, and a second pair was brought into position on the bow cats. We armed up the air wing, the gun mounts were manned and loaded. We were going to war.

What caused all this? A large unidentified aircraft had appeared on radar over Cyprus, and was not responding to radio calls. Worse, it was headed for us. The last thing we needed was to be caught flat-footed, enjoying the beauty of the sunny Greek islands while Armageddon was on the way. There is nothing as useless as a carrier with less than thirty knots of wind over the deck, your main battery - all those aircraft you ferry around with you - make a pretty worthless defense if you can't get them in the air.

As it turned out, the unidentified aircraft was a Turkish 707, bound for Athens out of Nicosia, Cyprus. We got a good scare, and lost a day's liberty, but as you can imagine the Captain of the Turkish airliner experienced a true brown-trouser moment as two fully-armed F-4s first made a screaming supersonic pass across his flight path, Yes, the formerly-inattentive 707 driver displayed two large white eyeballs and what appeared to be a full set of teeth from the drop-jawed position as a result of that close pass as the CAP aircraft joined up on his wings while his true status and intentions were worked out. Meanwhile the freaked-out Turkish Captain had some 'splainin to do . . .

Warships need to be able to maneuver, to employ their electronics, their countermeasures, and their weapons in defense of the ship and the carrier group in company. This may involve a half-dozen ships or more, and all of their intelligence, command, and firepower. Employing these assets in a small harbor is not impossible, but would be EXTREMELY messy.

Again, mmarshall is correct, while a good portion of the ship's company and marine detachment were on the pier conducting the replenishment operation, they were recovered almost immediately after the attack. While the responsibility for the safety of the ship while in port is generally considered the responsibility of the host nation, I suspect that with the terror situation being what it is, our warships will now replenish at sea. Just another way the War on Terror is replacing the Cold War as our military/diplomatic focus.

[mmarshall]

Originally Posted by Lil4X

There is nothing as useless as a carrier with less than thirty knots of wind over the deck, your main battery - all those aircraft you ferry around with you - make a pretty worthless defense if you can't get them in the air.

.

As you no doubt are aware of, Lil......this is not a problem with Harriers. Their swivel-thrust nozzles allow them to operate under conditions that are impossible for conventional fixed-wing attack aircraft. Their only limitations compared to conventional Navy / Marine attack planes are slower ( subsonic) speeds and limited combat range due to the large amount of fuel it takes for vertical take-offs and landings.

And a true CAP, if possible or practical, will already have attack planes aloft over the ship or in the area on routine patrol and ready to pounce on a moment's notice......again something not always possible in a foreign port.