Small Wars Journal

The Islamic State’s Drone Documents: Management, Acquisitions, and DIY Tradecraft

Tue, 01/31/2017 - 9:27am

The Islamic State’s Drone Documents: Management, Acquisitions, and DIY Tradecraft by Don Rassler, Muhammad al-`Ubaydi and Vera Mironova, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point

Much has been made of the Islamic State drone threat ever since the group killed two Kurdish soldiers in October 2016 with a bomb hidden within one of its drones that Kurdish forces downed in Iraq. The Islamic State was able to achieve this feat through an act of deception, as the two Kurdish soldiers were killed by the bomb after they had taken the drone back to their base to inspect it. Since this type of attack had not been conducted before, the drone was an unassuming place for the Islamic State to hide an improvised explosive device. But that trick only works occasionally, and it likely has a limited shelf life.

Creativity and innovation, however, don’t appear to be problems for the Islamic State. Several days ago, on January 24, 2017, the group’s media office for Ninawa province released a video entitled “The Knights of the Dawawin,” which highlighted a new Islamic State drone capability: dropping small bomb-like munitions on its enemies from the air. The capability displayed was not a one-off achievement as in scene after scene the video shows the group dropping small bombs from remotely controlled drones and doing so with some level of relative accuracy. This included the Islamic State being able to successfully drop munitions onto crowds and to hit stationary vehicles and tanks while its drone loitered and filmed the incidents. Besides the surprise factor observed from those being targeted by the Islamic State’s drones, the video also showed that the group’s new capability packed enough punch to injure those near where the munition landed. And on January 30, the Wilayat al-Furat media office released a video entitled “Roar of the Lions” in which the Islamic State featured its military operations in the Anbar Province of Iraq. At the end of the video, the group showed a brief teaser for its next release, which contained a video clip of the drone bomb drop capability (this time with what appeared to be a round grenade) being used in Anbar.

Despite these achievements, it is also important to remember that the videos released by the Islamic State are edited pieces of propaganda, which likely have been carefully crafted to make the group—and its capabilities—look impressive. What isn’t being shown are all of the times U.S. and Iraqi forces have downed the Islamic State’s quad-copters or instances when the Islamic State’s new drone bomb drop tool were less accurate…

Read on.

Comments

cammo99

Tue, 01/31/2017 - 11:33am

The Islamic State has inspired numerous "lone wolf" attacks in the USA often dissociated from their acts by an Obama theocractic outlook that chose to disconnect reference to Islam in those attacks. Should we be concerned a "lone wolf" poses a greater threat using drones in the USA where flaunting FAA guidelines for deploying spy cam drones for recreational use is a regular occurrence and considered an act of freedom by Americans who view the guidelines as an imposition on the Constitution by the USG.