Pleased to see that Brighton-based activist newsletter Schnews has good article on armed drone in their latest issue.
Month: July 2010
Death from the skies: 100 and still droning on
This weekend saw four CIA drone strikes in Pakistan with a death toll estimated to be around 35. This has brought the number of drone strikes in Pakistan since Nobel Peace Prize winning President Barack Obama came to power to 100. The Guardian reports that British Reapers have been used 97 times to launch attacks in Afghanistan since 2008.
The Guardian information comes in their reporting of the 90,000 secret US military files, released via Wikileaks, that detail military operations between 2004 and 2009 in Afghanistan. The files can be downloaded from Wikileaks here.
This report details an armed strike by a Reaper drone which resulted in two Afghan children being wounded.
This report details how a Reaper continues to attack people fleeing from its inital attack.
This report details how a Reaper was assigned to bomb 3 people believed to be planting an IED.
No doubt as people trawl through the thousands of files, more details of how drones are operating in Afghanistan will emerge.
Drones and the Farnborough ‘airshow’
There has been much drone news over the past ten days, much of it generated by the Farnborough ‘airshow – in truth more of an arms/aerospace fair- so I thought I would do a quick round-up.
General Atomics Avenger
General Atomics, maker of the Predator and Reaper drone were much in evidence at Farnborough and received lots of press coverage, including a profile piece on General Atomics owner, Neal Blue, in the FT. At the airshow, General Atomics revealed that they had won approve from US regulators to export the unarmed version of Predator to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, U.A.E. and Morocco, and had applied for a license to sell to Pakistan. How long they will stay unarmed is anyones guess.
General Atomics though were in town mainly to pitch their new drone, Avenger, an upgrade of the Predator and Reaper to the RAF. Avenger had its first flight in April 2010 and is now in flight testing. Aviation Week revealed more detail about Avenger including that it will be produced in different variants.
Drone downed by Laser
Farnborough was also the setting for the news that Raytheon had downed a drone (four actually) by laser. This also gained much coverage (including this wonderfully daft article in the Sun). “This was a bad day for UAVs, and a good one for laser technology,” said Raytheon Missile Systems’ vice-president, Mike Booen in the Guardian.
CIA Drone Guy Becomes New Top Spy
was how Wired News reported that John Bennett was to be the next chief of the National Clandestine Service, the operations side of the CIA. Bennett, according AFP, oversaw the Predator drone ‘program’ in Pakistan.
Zephyr – the eternal drone
Zephyr, the Qinetiq developed solar unmanned drone completed its record breaking 14 day flight on 22nd July. Launched by hand, the 22 metre wingspan aircraft flies by day on solar power which is then used to recharge the lithium-sulphur batteries, which are used to power the aircraft by night. Although Qinetiq is a British company, the flight trial took place at a US military range in Arizona as the US military are very interested in the aircraft that can provide low-cost, non-stop surveillance over months rather than days.
Speaking to the BBC about Zephyr, which has been dubbed the ‘eternal drone’, project manager Jon Slatmarsh cut to the chase: “Qinetiq is now looking to the Ministry of Defence and the DoD (US Department of Defense) to put a system into service.”
Footprints….
A briefing by Thales UK business manager at the Airshow led to the Telegraph headline ‘’Watchkeeper drone can detect footprints from above clouds’. The reality is as the Register reported, the Anglo-French I-MASTER radar on Watchkeeper “allows images of the same piece of ground from different times to be compared – detecting vehicle tracks and even footprints which may have been left since the first image was taken.”
BBC research into drone strikes in Pakistan
BBC Urdu has published new research into the undeclared war in Pakistan. They report that since January 2009 nearly 2,500 people have been killed in Pakistan as a result of US drones and Islamic militant attacks. They attribute 746 deaths to US drone strikes (30%) and 1,713 deaths (70%) to Islamic militant attacks.
What will hit the headlines though is the fact that in response a Taleban spokesman, Muhammed Umer, has said that “In the short term, yes, you can say it [drone strikes] has caused us some difficulties because of the martyrdoms and realignment of our ranks.” The Guardian have already reported the story as ‘Taliban says US drone attacks ‘temporarily’ hindering insurgency’. What Muhammed Umer goes on to say – and probably won’t get so much coverage – is that the drone strikes are also bringing new volunteers and recruits.
A unnamed ‘senior US official’ is also quoted in the report as saying that since Obama has taken office, 650 militants and 20 non-combatants have been killed by drone strikes. Tactfully the BBC say
“Research by the BBC’s Urdu service puts the number of those killed considerably higher, and says there have been many cases where there has been no positive identification of those killed at all”.
While the CIA, as usual refused to comment on their drone strikes, the same ‘unnamed senior US official’ said that drones are “the most precise weapons system in the history of warfare.” No doubt as precise as his casualty figures.
BBC research into drone strikes in Pakistan
BBC Urdu has published new research into the undeclared war in Pakistan. They report that since January 2009 nearly 2,500 people have been killed in Pakistan as a result of US drones and Islamic militant attacks. They attribute 746 deaths to US drone strikes (30%) and 1,713 deaths (70%) to Islamic militant attacks.
What will hit the headlines though is the fact that in response a Taleban spokesman, Muhammed Umer, has said that “In the short term, yes, you can say it [drone strikes] has caused us some difficulties because of the martyrdoms and realignment of our ranks.” The Guardian have already reported the story as ‘Taliban says US drone attacks ‘temporarily’ hindering insurgency’. What Muhammed Umer goes on to say – and probably won’t get so much coverage – is that the drone strikes are also bringing new volunteers and recruits.
A unnamed ‘senior US official’ is also quoted in the report as saying that since Obama has taken office, 650 militants and 20 non-combatants have been killed by drone strikes. Tactfully the BBC say
“Research by the BBC’s Urdu service puts the number of those killed considerably higher, and says there have been many cases where there has been no positive identification of those killed at all”.
While the CIA, as usual refused to comment on their drone strikes, the same ‘unnamed senior US official’ said that drones are “the most precise weapons system in the history of warfare.” No doubt as precise as his casualty figures.
Skynet 5: Connecting the Drones
Whilst it is relatively easy to build, launch and fly a drone, controlling them over great distances and then launching missiles and bombs requires a key element that is available to relatively few forces – military satellites.
The UK has three military hardened Skynet 5 satellites in geostationary orbit 40,000km above the earth’s surface which relay communications between headquarters in the UK and British forces deployed on operations overseas. A fourth Skynet 5 satellite will be launched in 2013.
The satellites enable RAF pilots sitting in their base in the Nevada desert to fly Reaper drones and launch their missiles over Afghanistan. Via Skynet 5’s high-bandwidth connection, information and video from the Reapers over Afghanistan is beamed to Creech USAF base in Nevada and to the UK.
Skynet 5 however is not owned by the Ministry of Defence, but by a private company called Paradigm Secure Communication. In 2003 the Ministry of Defence signed a £3.6bn deal with Paradigm Secure Communication for provision of all worldwide satellite communications services to UK Armed Forces up to 2018 (later amended to 2020 and then this year extended to 2022). This Private Finance Initiative (PFI), one of the most expensive ever signed by the MoD, is paid for in part by selling spare bandwidth to other military forces.
1. Skynet 5 enables satellite communications for UK forces
2. The largely autonomous satellites talk to two UK ground stations
3. Skynet 5 supports high-bandwidth applications, such as UAV video
4. Antennas and terminals are being upgraded to make best use of Skynet
5. New battlefield networks, such as Cormorant, feed into the system
6. System gives commanders access to more information, faster
Paradigm Secure Communications is a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS (the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company), one of the world largest military companies. Within the company structure, Paradigm is part of Astrium Services, which delivers space-based services to military and government users. Astrium Services owns 75% of Milsat Services which also provides military satellite communication services to both the German armed forces and the French Navy.
While British Reaper drones are flying over Afghanistan and controlled by pilots in the Nevada desert, the Skynet system is operated out of several locations in the UK. The system has two satellite ground stations, one in Hampshire (Oakhanger) and one in Wiltshire (Colerne). However Paradigm operates the Skynet 5 satellites from a dedicated centre in Hawthorn, Wiltshire, very close to the MoD’s Defence Communications and Services Agency (DCSA) Global Operations and Security Control Centre at Corsham.