etudiant,
The B-52s were based at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar where a detachment had been deployed for nearly 2 years. Only jus5 been rotated for a B-1 deployment.
Yes indeed, providing several hours of planned on-call close air support every day, which seems to have overlapped with this unusual tasking. That B52s provided close air support for urban combat (!) in the modern climate shows how much the nature of its operations has been changed by GPS guided munitions and quick, accurate coordinate generation capabilities: in the air, on the ground and remotely.