Israeli weapon seen in rare AP photos of Beirut airstrike appears to be a powerful smart bomb

JERUSALEM (AP) — In all but the blink of an eye, an Associated Press photographer's camera captured the moments that a battleship-gray Israeli bomb plummeted toward a Beirut building before detonating to bring the tower down.

The airstrike came 40 minutes after Israel warned people to evacuate two buildings in the area that it said were located near Hezbollah warehouses and assets. The site was not far from where a spokesperson for the militant group had just briefed journalists.

It was a rare glimpse into the use of one of the most powerful bombs in Israel's arsenal.

An examination by independent arms researchers suggests the weapon was a guided bomb, also known as a smart bomb, launched from an Israeli jet.

The tail fin and nose sections indicate this was a 2,000-pound warhead fitted with an Israeli-made guidance kit known as SPICE, according to Richard Weir, a senior conflict, crisis and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch.

SPICE — Smart, Precise-Impact and Cost-Effective — guidance systems are made by Israel’s government-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. They are attached to a standard unguided bomb to direct the weapon to its target.

Minutes before the strike brought down the building, there were two smaller strikes on it, in what Israel’s military often refers to as a “a knock on the roof" warning strike, according to AP journalists at the scene. The practice has been observed in Israel's military campaign in Gaza; there, over 40,000 have been killed, according to local officials who don't distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths, in one of the most destructive conflicts in recent history.

The Israeli military declined to comment about the type of weapon used.

Rafael advertises SPICE kits as being able to operate day or night, through bad weather, and in areas jammed against GPS. It says the weapons offer “high lethality and low collateral damage” and “pinpoint hit accuracy.”

It also keeps the attacking aircraft out of harm's way. The 2,000-pound version can be launched as far as 60 kilometers (37 miles) from its target. Rafael also makes smaller versions.

Once released by an attacking Israeli warplane such as an American-made F-15 or F-16, the bomb glides toward its target, adjusting course using movable fins.

Joseph Dempsey, a defense and military analyst at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, agreed the photos indicated the weapon was a 2,000-pound SPICE bomb.

He said the guidance system is thought to rely on GPS and what are known as electro-optical guidance systems, which use cameras or sensors to zero in on the bomb's target.

The destructive nature of the weapon comes down to many factors, including the size of the warhead and the way it is fused.

“This was clearly a delayed action fuse. It buried down into the ground (and) detonated, which has the effect of limiting the fragmentation and blast damage of this particular strike,” Weir said.

That explains why the destruction was limited almost entirely to the targeted building. People standing a few hundred meters away felt little to nothing from the blast and didn't see much fragmentation.

The answer isn't straightforward.

“The guidance kits for the SPICE 2000 are manufactured by Rafael in Israel, though the level of reliance on foreign sub-components is unclear,” Dempsey said.

In 2019, Rafael and U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin signed a deal to work together to build and sell SPICE guidance kits in the U.S. At the time, the companies said production of over 60 percent of the SPICE system was spread across eight U.S. states.

In late October 2023, weeks after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack, the U.S. State Department issued a letter approving the export of additional SPICE bomb assemblies to Israel.

That letter, first reported by The New York Times, notified Congress that Rafael USA, an American subsidiary of the Israeli defense company, was seeking the $320 million shipment. That request was an amendment to an earlier $403 million license in 2020.

The explosive warhead is a basic bomb, in this case likely a 2,000-pound MK-84 style explosive, where the nose and tail section have been swapped out for the guidance system.

The U.S. earlier this year paused shipments of those powerful bombs to Israel because of concerns over civilian casualties, though Israel is believed to still have supplies in stock.

It is difficult to know for sure where the bomb part was produced. Israel relies on the U.S. for supplies of MK-84 bombs, but it and other countries also produce similar weapons.

Determining that with certainty would require recovering remnants with markings on them, Weir said.

__

Associated Press journalist Sarah El Deeb contributed from Beirut.

CAPTION CORRECTS TYPE OF MUNITION A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Smoke rises from a building following an Israeli warning strike, that came minutes before a bomb brought down the building, in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

CAPTION CORRECTS TYPE OF MUNITION A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

CAPTION CORRECTS TYPE OF MUNITION A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

CAPTION CORRECTS TYPE OF MUNITION A sequence of combination images show a bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hitting a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

CAPTION CORRECTS TYPE OF MUNITION People duck down as a bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

CAPTION CORRECTS TYPE OF MUNITION A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

DENVER (AP) — A man accused of repeatedly threatening to kill the top elections officials in Colorado and Arizona as well as judges and federal law enforcement agents pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of making interstate threats.

Teak Ty Brockbank, 45, of Cortez, Colorado, acknowledged he made online threats to kill people “out of fear, hate and anger” before entering his plea. The details of what exactly he admitted doing were contained in court documents that were not immediately made public.

Brockbank, who has been jailed since his Aug. 23 arrest, faces up to five years in prison when he's sentenced on Feb. 3.

Brockbank had previously pleaded not guilty but his lawyer, Thomas Ward, notified the court earlier this month that he wanted to change his plea. Ward declined to comment after the hearing.

According to a detention motion, Brockbank told investigators after his arrest that he's not a “vigilante” and hoped his posts would simply “wake people up.”

Investigators say Brockbank began to express the view that violence against public officials was necessary in late 2021 and proceeded to make multiple threats against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and former Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, now the state's governor, and the others.

Brockbank criticized the government's response to Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk convicted this year for allowing a breach of her election system inspired by false claims about election fraud in the 2020 presidential race, according to court documents. He also was upset in December 2023 after a divided Colorado Supreme Court removed Donald Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot.

In one social media post in August 2022, referring to Griswold and Hobbs, Brockbank allegedly said: “Once those people start getting put to death then the rest will melt like snowflakes and turn on each other,” according to copies of the threats included in court documents. Griswold and Hobbs were not named as among those allegedly targeted by Brockbank when he was first arrested but were identified as victims in evidence unsealed in September.

The investigation was launched in August 2022 after Griswold's office notified federal authorities of posts made on Gab and Rumble, an alternative video-sharing platform that has been criticized for allowing and sometimes promoting far-right extremism, according to court documents.

Brockbank also allegedly posted in October 2021 that he could use his rifle to “put a bullet” in the head of a state judge who had overseen Brockbank's probation for his fourth conviction for driving under the influence, calling the judge a “Nazi,” prosecutors said in an Aug. 27 motion asking that Brockbank be kept behind bars while prosecuted.

Prosecutors also say Brockbank posted in July 2022 that he would shoot without warning any federal agent who showed up at his house. Prosecutors said a half dozen firearms were found in his home after his August arrest, including a loaded one near his front door, even though he can't legally possess firearms due to a felony conviction of attempted theft by receiving stolen property in Utah in 2002.

And although Brockbank was charged for threats allegedly made between September 2021 and August 2022, prosecutors say he's kept it up since then.

In December 2023, after Trump was removed from Colorado's presidential primary ballot, Brockbank allegedly told his stepfather in a text that he was adding the four judges who backed removing Trump to “my list.”

And this July, prosecutors say, Brockbank continued to threaten Griswold because her office triggered the investigation of Peters by notifying authorities about the data breach in 2021. Griswold also has been outspoken nationally on elections security and has received threats in the past over her insistence that the 2020 election was secure.

Peters was sentenced to nearly nine years behind bars this month for allowing access to the county’s election system to a man affiliated with My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell — a prominent promoter of false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election. Authorities investigated separate threats made against her trial judge, Matthew Barrett. Most of the messages appear to have been strongly worded opinions but none appeared to rise to the level of a crime, Mesa County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Wendy Likes said Tuesday.

Brockbank was prosecuted by the Justice Department's Election Threats Task Force, announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland to protect workers who have been subject to increasing threats since the 2020 election.

In 2022, a Nebraska man pleaded guilty to making death threats against Griswold in what officials said was the first such plea obtained by the task force.

FILE - Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, speaks prior to signing the repeal of the Civil War-era near-total abortion ban, May 2, 2024, at the Capitol in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)

FILE - Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold speaks in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, Feb. 8, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)