Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Hezbollah's use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles - UAVs

According to the common wisdom, terrorists -- or let's just say contradictive political fractions -- weren't supposed to be capable of owning the using unmanned aerial vehicles in war conflicts, but be only able to wage guerilla warfare thus balancing the unequal forces in a conflict. Seems like Hezbollah are indeed capable of owning and using UAVs, as Israel recently shot down yet another one :

"Israeli aircraft shot down an unmanned spy plane launched by the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah as it entered Israeli territory on Monday, the Israeli army said. The drone was spotted by the air force's monitoring unit and fighter planes were scrambled to intercept it, an Israeli military spokesman said. The spokesman said a fighter plane shot the drone down 10 km (six miles) off Israel's coast, northwest of the city of Haifa. "The current assessment is that it was headed further south, we do not know exactly for what purpose," the spokesman said. An Israeli military source added that it was an Iranian-made drone with a range of about 150 km."

Go through an in-depth post at DefenseTech, and Eugene Miasnikov's report on Threat of Terrorism Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Technical Aspects, which :

"assesses the technical possibility of UAV use as a delivery means for terrorists. The analysis shows that such a threat does exist and that it will grow. The author also considers areas that require higher attention from government agencies. This report is also targeted at the Russian public. Terrorist activity can be prevented only through the coordinated efforts of the government and civil society. The government cannot efficiently fight terrorists without the active involvement of the population. The first step toward creating such an alliance is to recognize the threat and its potential consequences."

So what's next once reconnaissance is taken care of and timely intelligence gathered? UCAVs in the long term, of course. Nothing's impossible, the impossible just takes a little while!

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