Another Reaper provided air support on Wednesday 2 September to Iraqi army units operating in western Iraq. The aircraft conducted four successful attacks on terrorist targets. With the ISIL in Ramadi increasingly cut-off and isolated by the Iraqi security forces, terrorists were spotted loading hundreds of mortar and rocket rounds onto a boat, which then attempted to smuggle the ammunition down the Euphrates river. A direct hit by one of the Reaper’s Hellfires sank the boat and its cargo.
The Reaper then destroyed three vehicles – two armoured trucks and a bull-dozer – using a pair of Hellfire missiles and a Paveway guided bomb, with significant secondary explosions confirming large quantities of explosives. Elsewhere in Iraq, a second Reaper successfully attacked a terrorist position with a Hellfire, whilst GR4s located an enemy engineering vehicle near Mosul, constructing a fortified position, and destroyed it with a Paveway.