While a sizable portion of you are probably aware that the U.S. military and its allies are flying missions over Syria, and a good chunk of you are probably aware that U.S. special forces are running around and bleep ISIS up, you might not be aware that a whole Marine Corps artillery unit deployed to Syria as well. And it’s been busy.
The guns fired by the 400 Marines from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, normally deployed with the USS Makin Island amphibious assault ship, managed to fire more than 4,500 rounds at the Islamic State group, the unit’s spokesman told the Marine Corps Times:
Marine Corps officials were tight-lipped on Wednesday when talking to reporters about the 11th MEU’s contributions to operations in Syria and elsewhere. Thomas said that the number of artillery rounds the Marines fired in Syria was the one statistic he was allowed to share.
“It’s an ongoing operation,” Thomas said during a roundtable discussion. “We have another Marine unit that’s there – to my knowledge, they have not released that name, so we’ll let [Operation Inherent Resolve] do that. It’s not exactly an established theater as Iraq or Afghanistan was.”
Furthermore it turns out the 11th MEU has been carrying out other missions that it can’t talk about publicly, but from the looks if it, there have been some missions in Yemen. The Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey that crashed back in February, was also from the Makin Island, the Marine Corps Times points out.
More:
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/u-s-marines-went-to-syria-and-lobbed-over-4-500-shells-1795580256
