Syria/ Saudi Arabia

The Eurofighter Typhoon is a twin-engine, multi-role, strike fighter-aircraft. The Saudi Air Force had ordered and received seventy-two Typhoons in 2006. The aircraft is capable of sustained supersonic cruising at fifty thousand feet, which makes it difficult to track by radar. It reaches this height from take off, in under a minute. It is an air superiority fighter, which other Middle Eastern countries do not possess. The Saudi Minister for Defence, Abdul Kellesh, was extremely proud of this lethal addition to his air force. The news that his niece was killed in an explosion in England, possibly sponsored by Yasser Ahmed, would give him the opportunity to demonstrate the awesome power of their air force to its` troublesome Arab neighbours. The countries of the Middle East were constantly flexing muscle as a deterrent against the threat of military force. The introduction of the Typhoon strike aircraft into the region meant that the Saudi government was now holding all the aces from a military capability point of view. Abdul Kellesh had persuaded the Saudi Royal Family, who held all the true political power and ultimately made important decisions, that the chance to show its neighbours the tactical capability of its` new air force should not be missed. The Saudi leaders had agreed that an airstrike was a just response for the death of Jeannie Kellesh. The Saudis were wary that the airstrike was to encroach on Syrian land; however the Syrians denied the existence of such terror training camps within its borders.

Previous attacks on Islamic terror training camps had never attracted international condemnation no matter what the scale of the attack. On August 20^th1998, the Americans launched Operation Infinite Reach, in retaliation for al-Qaeda attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The embassy bombs planted by al-Qaeda operatives killed two hundred and twenty four people and wounded five thousand others. In response seventy eight Tomahawk Cruise missiles were launched from US warships in the Red Sea; several destroyed a suspect pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan, which was linked to the production of chemical weapons. In addition seventy five Cruise missiles landed on four insurgent training camps around Khost and Jalalabad, Afghanistan, leaving nothing but smouldering craters. In retaliation a Muslim organisation bombed a Planet Hollywood restaurant in Cape Town, South Africa killing twenty five and injuring twenty six. Protests were held across the Islamic world but international condemnation never materialised. The Saudis were banking on a similar response this time round.

 The Ishmael terror training camp was positioned between the borders of Syria and Jordan. The camp had between two hundred and three hundred men there at any one time, learning the basics of how to shoot and maintain a weapon, and the manufacture of roadside bombs. Yasser Ahmed did not force any of the young men that attended the camp to stay there. Any one that wished to leave could do so. Neither did the religious teachers brainwash any one. The young men that flocked to the camp in Sudan and those similar in Afghanistan and Somalia did so of their own volition. Most of the volunteers were dedicated to Yasser Ahmed and his Islamic Jihad long before they arrived in the camps. Many of them had overcome huge hurdles and great hardship to reach the camps. Yasser Ahmed was receiving requests from all over the Islamic world for finance and logistical help with planned bomb attacks and assassinations on a horrific scale. These requests and the recruits that carried them, originated from the increasing number of disaffected young Muslims that were motivated enough to devote substantial parts of their lives to Islamic extremism. The Ishmael camp was isolated from the outside world and conditions were harsh. There was no running water hence the sanitation facilities for two hundred men gave the camp a permanent lingering odour of human sewage. Supplies of food and water were flown in daily in two small aircraft from Damascus. Financial donations from Islamic sympathisers kept the recruits fed and watered. Arms and munitions were delivered monthly on the back of Syrian military vehicles even though the government constantly denied the existence of training camps. The majority of training was carried out at sunrise after morning prayers before the desert sun became too hot. It was still early and the men were resting when the Saudi jets taxied to their runway takeoff positions. The insurgents were drinking mint tea or sleeping.

Six Eurofighter Typhoons took off from their base near Rhiad, Saudi Arabia. In under a minute they had climbed to their cruising altitude of fifty thousand feet. They were beyond the radar capabilities of Iraq or Iran as they headed over Jordanian air space into Syria. Two of the strike aircraft were armed with MBDA Meteor air to ground missiles, which had bunker busting warheads attached. The missiles would be aimed at the larger hangers next to the runway. The weapons were designed to pierce reinforced concrete structures before detonating massive incendiary devices, which carried napalm like chemicals. The devastating effects of incendiary explosions within the confined environment of a bunker would annihilate any human life within.

The second wave of Typhoon fighters were armed with AGM-84 Sidewinder missiles and Storm Shadow cluster bombs. The Sidewinders were designed to explode one hundred feet above the target showering the area with shaped metal charges, which could penetrate armoured vehicles and brick buildings. This devastating weapon was capable of destroying troops and armoured personnel carriers over a wide target area. The Storm Shadow cluster bombs were a very controversial choice of weapon. They were contained within a hollow rocket, which was filled with a mixture of airborne incendiary bombs and fragmentation anti-personnel grenades. They were designed to wipe out any enemy troops that had somehow managed to survive the initial airstrikes. The controversial part was that they also showered a wide area with anti-personnel mines. The ordinance was designed from a non-corroding plastic material, which left the mined area inaccessible for decades. The idea was stop the enemy from ever returning to the site again. The truth was that innocent civilians would become casualties for generations to come.

 The first Typhoon unleashed hell in the form of four, MBDA Meteor missiles. The insurgents that were working or resting in the hanger areas never even heard the aircraft before they were incinerated by the burning liquid. The intense fires stripped flesh from bone in seconds, few men had chance to scream before their lungs seared as they inhaled the scorching air. When the young terrorists, whom were in their dormitories, heard the initial explosions they picked up the nearest weapons to them, and rushed outside. It was the worst place to be. They were shredded and burned to cinders in minutes by the shaped metal charges and incendiary devices that were descending to earth slowly on tiny little parachutes. The charges were set to detonate at different times to maximise the killing zones of the bombs to devastating effect. The two small aircraft that were used to ferry supplies to the camp, were turned into pieces of tin foil confetti blowing across the desert in the second wave of the attack. The final Typhoon approached the smoking devastation at Mach speed. Using the heat from the fires on the ground as the target it launched a five hundred pound Brimstone bomb. The shockwave was felt three hundred miles away in Damascus. There were no bodies to count and no DNA to identify. No one could confirm or deny that that the camp ever existed or if it was sponsored by Yasser Ahmed. No one could say that it was training a new generation of terrorists. There was simply nothing left.