This article first appeared on Warrior Maven, a Military Content Group website. 

 

 

 

US Air Force B-2 stealth bombers destroyed Houthi five hardened weapons storage sites buried underground with precision strikes, demonstrating the Pentagon and its allies appear to have the surveillance and intelligence capabilities to locate buried weapons caches and the bunker-buster, earth-penetrating weapons to destroy them.

There have been many air strikes from F/A-18s over Houthi territory to destroy launchers, equipment, and other more visible surface assets, and the US Navy has on several occasions fired ship-launched Tomahawks into Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen to destroy similar targets. The use of B-2s against hardened underground targets, however, would suggest that the US and its allied forces were able to acquire the requisite intelligence information needed to precisely locate these hidden weapons stashes. Underground weapons are likely buried for the specific purpose of remaining undetectable to overhead EO/IR cameras, sensors and even satellite imagery, yet it appears US forces were able to locate them regardless. Not only do these strikes appear to reveal successful targeting and intelligence-gathering operations, but they also indicate an ability to “destroy” underground targets from the air over Houthi territory in Yemen.

“U.S. forces targeted several of the Houthis’ underground facilities housing various weapons components of types that the Houthis have used to target civilian and military vessels throughout the region. This was a unique demonstration of the United States’ ability to target facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, hardened, or fortified,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a written statement from the Pentagon.