The US Combined Air Operations Center in the Middle East has seen ongoing problems with Iranian aircraft intercepting US assets, including a recent incident where Iranian fighters threatened two US Navy aircraft. “From where we sit here at al Udeid, that has been a continuing issue with respect to Iranian intercepts,” AFCENT Commander Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian said during a Tuesday briefing. Harrigian said Iran is exhibiting “provocative” activity in the sky over the Persian Gulf, but he did not provide specifics for recent Air Forces Central Command incidents. On Sept. 10 a Navy P-8 Poseidon and an EP-3 Aries were threatened by Iran while flying 13 miles off its coast, according to FOX News. “We wanted to test the Iranian reaction,” a US official told FOX. While both AFCENT and Navy Central Command have seen ongoing issues during surveillance flights, Iran has not impacted the coalition’s ongoing fight against ISIS in the region, Harrigian said.
The Air Force overall reduced its size by 120 aircraft in fiscal year 2021, but kept about the same number of fighter, bomber and attack aircraft, according to data supplied by the service. The F-35 fleet saw the biggest increase while the B-1B bomber fleet saw the largest decline.