A new wave of users have launched drone strikes either on their own territory or across borders over the past 15 months.
Turkish armed drone – The Bayraktar TB2
While the majority of attention on armed drones has focused on US use (and to some extent on the UK and Israeli), growing proliferation of these systems has meant that a number of other countries have acquired or developed armed drones and are beginning to regularly use them to launch strikes.
Most of these second wave of countries have acquired their armed drones from China – either the slightly older ‘Wing Loong (‘Pterodactyl’) developed by Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group Read more →
The news that the UK has followed the US and Israel in using armed drones to launch a targeted killing outside of UN sanctioned armed conflict should make the international community even more concerned about the growing proliferation of armed drones.
It wasn’t that long ago that an article about the use of drones in the mainstream press was a rare occurrence. Now so much is happening that it is difficult to keep up with all the news about drones. Over the past two weeks important developments have taken place on a number of fronts so we thought a general news round-up would be helpful. Read more →
Western defense officials and experts were surprised to see more than 25 different Chinese models of the unmanned aircraft, known as UAVs, on display at this week’s Zhuhai air show in this southern Chinese city. It was a record number for a country that unveiled its first concept UAVs at the same air show only four years ago…. China is investing considerable time and money to develop drone technology, and is actively promoting its products on the international market …. It is of particular concern to the U.S. and Israel, whose drones are unrivalled in the world today.
One of the Chinese drones, WJ600, will caused considerable anxiety as a video animation showed it helping “to attack what appeared to be a U.S. aircraft carrier steaming toward an island off China’s coast that many visitors assumed to be Taiwan”. Another, dubbed ‘the Chinese Predator’ by the aviation magazines, has undergone a series of flight trials, including weapons launches.
The United States has begun moves to develop what amounts to a new international control regime on the proliferation and use of armed drones. US officials presented details of a ‘
An Israeli drone launched an assassination strike in Gaza this week killing two people and injuring three more. The two fatalities, killed in their vehicle as it drove along al-Wihda Street in the centre of Gaza City, were named locally as brothers Islam Yassin and Mohammed Yassin, members of the Army of Islam. According to Al-Jazeerah 