The New and Dangerous Chapter of Drone Attacks – Gwynne Dyer

Commercially available quadcopter drones capable of carrying small quantities of explosives are “the most worrying tactical development since the emergence of IEDs in Iraq,” United States Navy General Kenneth McKenzie Jr, commander of the United States, said in February. head for the Middle East. Now drones have also become political weapons, and things could get even worse.

Two weeks ago, three quadcopter drones flew over Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone to attack the home of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al Kadhimi, who won the election last month and is trying to form a new coalition government. usually takes several months).

Two drones were shot down, but the third managed to drop enough explosives to blow up Kadhimi’s door and injure at least five guards. Kadhimi sustained a wrist injury. If the prime minister had lost his life he would have been the first prominent politician to be killed by a drone. This honor, on the other hand, will go to someone else. And we probably won’t have to wait long.

Ranged kills
The small quadcopters were first used by the Islamic State group during the siege of Mosul in 2017, and still today the country where they are used most frequently is Iraq. In March, a drone carrying two kilos of explosives was found on the roof of a building in central Baghdad, while in July another aircraft was found in the same area after crashing. A few days later, US forces shot down a quadcopter carrying explosives as it flew over the US embassy.

The most sophisticated drones cost millions of dollars and have a wide range. These devices have been able to kill at a distance for at least a decade now, cause large explosions and usually avoid more populated urban areas. Last year they allowed Azerbaijan to win the war against Armenia. It was the first time that drones played a decisive role in “conventional” warfare.

The phenomenon we have been witnessing in recent months, however, is something completely different. “I’m not talking about large unmanned equipment, the size of a conventional fighter plane and counterbalanced by normal air defense equipment,” General McKenzie explained. “I’m talking about the ones you can buy at the supermarket for a thousand dollars”.
If you know someone capable of building improvised explosive devices (a particularly widespread skill these days), just buy some drones capable of carrying two / three kilos and that’s it.

The alternative is to learn how to produce the bombs yourself, proceeding by trial and error and remembering that usually a failed attempt corresponds to death. In any case, it is likely that the use of political assassinations, in disuse for a century, is about to make a comeback.

Of course, it is always possible to shoot down a quadcopter, but these are small and very fast targets. Drones can be operated in large numbers and go unnoticed until the last moment by flying low and blending into the urban clutter. If someone is piloting them it is possible to intercept the signal, but if they follow a pre-ordered path using the GPS there is no signal to block.

Furthermore, it is impossible to trace the “principals” of the small drones. Even recovering small pieces after the explosion, in fact, there are no marks on the fragments that allow to trace who bought the device.

Give in to temptation
At the origin of the latest episode in Iraq are the October elections, in which Kadhimi’s party got the chance to form a new government while pro-Iranian militias lost two thirds of seats in parliament. The vote was surprisingly regular, although the militias still launched allegations of fraud by even borrowing a slogan from Trump: “Stop the theft.”

On November 5, some particularly aggressive militia supporters invaded the Green Zone to protest. The police opened fire and wounded dozens of people. At least one protester lost his life. The drone attack on Kadhimi’s home, theoretically safe within the Green Zone, came just two days later.

Considering how cheap and safe drones are (for those who launch them), it’s easy to give in to the temptation to organize an attack. Even if the maneuver fails, in fact, it is highly unlikely that the authorities will be able to trace the culprits, which will be enough to wait a month before trying again from a different direction by varying speed and altitude.

It is inevitable that this technique will spread beyond Iraq’s borders, endangering the lives of politicians and other prominent public figures even in better managed countries. It will be necessary to increase the level of safety a lot, but even this will not be enough to guarantee the safety of the targets.

Among other things, a further technological breakthrough could soon arrive. It is not normally a good idea to maintain direct radio contact between the killer drone and the person who launched it, but if this person had access to facial recognition software it could lead to an open attack on a single individual by minimizing the “collateral damage”. Is nobody really safe?

In reality, no one has ever been safe. The kings were forced to resort to tasters to avoid being poisoned. Today presidents and prime ministers simply need a different kind of protection.

(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)