The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) may conduct an experiment by July to assist bolster the coverage of Afghanistan, the Pentagon Inspector General said in a recent report on Operation Enduring Sentinel, which began on Oct. 1, 2021 shortly after the U.S. withdrawal from that country and nearly 20 years after the beginning of U.S. combat operations there.
“The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy [OUSD(P)] said that the DoD intends to eventually field a platform with longer loiter time to enrich the MQ-9 Reapers currently in use, which may remain within the air for less than a limited time after the lengthy transit into Afghanistan and conserving enough fuel for the return flight,” the report said. “OUSD(P) noted that Air Force Research Lab is planning to conduct such an assessment using an experimental platform in support of USCENTCOM requirements, possibly within the third quarter of FY 2023.”
DoD has said that Enduring Sentinel goals to forestall Afghan secure havens from which groups could launch strikes against america.
At a March 16 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Army Gen. Michael Kurilla, the pinnacle of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), said that, because the August 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, “the reduction in collection, analytical resources, and intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance assets means our campaign against Al Qaeda and ISIS Khorasan is challenged; while we will see the broad contours of attack planning, we lack the granularity to see the entire threat picture.”
“ISIS-Khorasan has increased attacks within the region and desires to export those attacks beyond Afghanistan to incorporate the U.S. homeland and our interests abroad,” Kurilla said in his prepared testimony.
In response to a matter from Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) on the hearing, Kurilla said that CENTCOM wants to extend ISR of Afghanistan by investing in “long duration, high altitude, alternative ISR that may go up for days and weeks because, at once, I’m spending 80 percent of my time transiting to the region to have the option to gather excessive.”
The MQ-9As have flown to Afghanistan from allied air bases within the Arabian Peninsula. The Air Force has said that it’s capable of use Forward Arming and Refueling Points (FARPs) for MQ-9As on long missions.
In December, 2021, CENTCOM’s director of operation said that the command desired to bolster its ISR beyond current space assets and the General Atomics MQ-9A Reaper (, Dec. 7, 2021).
“The actual fact of the matter for U.S. CENTCOM is there’s really nothing else that has the gathering capabilities and the unique combination of collection capabilities that the MQ-9 has at once,” then Air Force Maj. Gen. Alexus “Grynch” Grynkewich, CENTCOM’s dirctor of operations, said on the time. “I don’t need to ask for MQ-9s. I need to ask for something that may provide full-motion video, SIGINT [signals intelligence], and whatever else it’s you’re in search of. But whenever you start adding those all up, there really is nothing else. I feel we’ll find other environments in the long run where we’d like a persistent collection capability, and whether that comes from a space-based collection capability, some form of a near space collection capability or other type of long-range, loitering airborne layer capability, those are going to be critically vital.”
Grynkewich is now a lieutenant general and has commanded Air Forces Central since July last yr.