US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles flying over Baghdad Monday spotted four men digging beside a road—setting a chain of events in motion that led to derailment of an attempt to bury improvised explosive devices. The F-15E pilots notified the Joint Terminal Attack Controllers they were working with; the JTACs alerted US Army soldiers, who arrived at the scene, prompting the suspected terrorists to flee in their van. The F-15Es left to refuel but not before handing off the situation to USAF F-16s, which followed the van, relaying the location to the JTACs, who fed it to the soldiers. The suspects abandoned the van before the soldiers arrived, but they left behind four 152 mm rounds and detonation cord.
Special-ops aviators, a physicist from the intelligence community, and an enlisted Marine with decades of deployments: U.S. Space Command’s military and civilian leaders who spoke May 7 were as likely to come from strictly space backgrounds as not. These are some of the day’s insights from inside the command, which…