Israel – Page 6 – Drone Wars UK

Drones Wars 2010: Proliferation, Pushing Autonomy and Prangs

23/12/2010Chris Cole

As the year draws to a close against a background of increasing drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan – between 50 and 60 people were killed in a number of separate drone strikes in Pakistan’s Khyber region this week – the development of drone wars continues right around the world. Three of the key themes that have emerged on this blog in the past six months –proliferation, the push to increased autonomy and drones crashes – are illustrated by developments this week.

Proliferation: As was clear through the Wikileaks cables, every dictator and military leader has the latest drones on their Christmas wish list and many companies, are happy to oblige. This week we learned that Israel are bidding to sell various drones to Chile and India while Peru has acquired micro drones from Israeli company Innocon.

The push to greater autonomy in drones has also been a regular theme this year and the year ends with Northrop Grumman announcing that its X-47B combat drone is about to make its first flight. The X-47B is designed to fly from an aircraft carrier and unlike current drones in service, the X-47b will fly mostly autonomously once aloft and, indeed its planned that it will be able to refuel in-flight autonomously.

Prangs! Finally the Drone Crash database illustrates how often drones, for all their supposed ‘smart technology’ sometimes simply fall out of the sky. Two more examples have been added to the database. Firstly two Australian drone crashes in Afghanistan have recently been revealed while a Mexican drone crashed in Texas last week. The drone, an Israeli made Orbiter mini UAV, crossed the border into the US and then crashed into the backyard of an El Paso resident.

And finally… Channel Four has a very good report on 2010: – The Year of the Drone

Drones: See No Border, Hear No Victims, Speak No Peace

20/11/2010Chris Cole

“You expect us to open the skies for anything that you can fly… in which country can you do that?” Unnamed Pakistani Intelligence Official

The Washington Post reports today (Nov. 20th) that further pressure is being put on the Pakistani government to widen the area that US drones are allowed to strike within Pakistan.

Unsurprisingly, after more than 100 drone strikes this year alone in the area in which they are operating, the Pakistani government has refused the request. This stance has, to put it mildly, annoyed the powers that be with one senior anonymous NATO military official quoted as saying “If they understand our side, they know the patience is running out.”

Also barely reported this week (and anytime it happens) was Israel’s incursion by unmanned drone into Lebanon. The flight, which pass within almost 50 miles of the capital Beirut, was in direct violation of UN resolutions (as Israel regularly is).

While neither the US nor Israel are famed for their respect of international law, there does seem to be something about unmanned drones that appears to mean a decrease in respect for international borders and sovereignty. Perhaps it’s the fact that the drone is unmanned and so ‘no body’ is actually crossing a border makes a difference to the military mind.

With more than forty countries developing unmanned drones these precedents of armed drones crossing international borders seemingly at will makes for a worrying future and suggests that a ban on armed drones is more important than ever.

Drones: Stressful for some, fatal for others

19/11/2010Chris Cole

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 an Israeli military spokesperson claimed responsibility for the assassination and stated that the attack was carried out after close collaboration between the army and the Israeli Security Agency Shabak, as the men were “plotting to attack Israeli citizens in the Sinai”. The dramatic photos in this report of the aftermath of the attack give some insight into the drone assassinations taking place in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Meanwhile British MoD Minster Andrew Robathan, confirmed this week that a study into the psychological health of British drone operators based in the US is currently underway. Previous reports focusing on US drone operators have suggested that drone pilots operating at great distances from the battlefield, are suffering from stress.

On the other side of the world, the sudden appearance of many new Chinese drones at a Chinese air show are causing Western defence officials a fair amount of stress. According to the Wall Street Journal

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.

This week – two more drones crashed in Afghanistan – one on Kharvar city on 12th November and another in the Kharwar district of Logar Province on Wednesday 17th November. So many drones are crashing that I plan to put up a separate list of drone crashes in the next few days.

UK Extends Drone Deal with Israel as Drone Crashes Continue

31/10/2010Chris Cole

This week the UK MoD extended its contract to operate Israeli Hermes 450 surveillance drones in Afghanistan by a further eighteen months. The contract extension, with U-TacS , the Leicester-based company jointly owned by Elbit systems and Thales UK is worth $70 million according to Elbit . The UK, which has been operating the Hermes drones in Afghanistan since July 2007, is developing the Watchkeeper drone to replace the Hermes on a permanent basis. However the Watchkeeper is currently around eight months behind schedule and not expected to enter service until late 2011/early 2012.

Meanwhile drones continue to crash at an alarming rate. In the last ten days alone a Predator has crashed and a Reaper drone has crashed at Hollman AFB in separate incidents, and an Israeli Skylark surveillance drone crashed in the Gaza strip. These come just days after an unknown drone crashed on the Afghan-Pakistan border on October 7.

PS: What happens when you protest Predator drones?

More Drone Strikes, More Drone Proliferation

15/10/2010Chris Cole

Children in North Waziristan with debris from drone missile. Copyright: CIVIC

Unmanned CIA drones strikes have continued this week in Pakistan with seven people killed in a strike on an Afghan refugee camp in North Waziristan on Sunday (10^th Oct) , eight killed in a strike on Wednesday (13^th Oct) four of whom were alleged to be from Turkmenistan and early reports suggesting between three and six people killed in a strike today (15^th Oct). Meanwhile a new report this week from American NGO CIVIC (Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict) challenges the official line that civilian casualties from drone attacks are very low. CIVIC researchers spent a year on the ground interviewing victims of conflict including drone strike victims:

Gul Nawaz, from North Waziristan, was watering his fields when he heard the explosion of drone missiles: “I rushed to my house when I heard the blast. When I arrived I saw my house and my brother’s house completely destroyed and all at home were dead.” Eleven members of Gul Nawaz’s family were killed, including his wife, two sons and two daughters as well as his elder brother, his wife, and his four children. “Yes, the drone strikes hurt the Taliban. Most of the strikes are effective against the Taliban but sometimes innocent people also become the victim of such attacks. Take my case … ” said Gul Nawaz. “I blame the government of Pakistan and the USA … they are responsible for destroying my family. We were living a happy life and I didn’t have any links with the Taliban. My family members were innocent … I wonder, why was I victimized?”

As Middle Eastern history Professor Juan Cole says in a piece this week by Johann Harri of The Independent “When you bomb people and kill their family, it pisses them off. They form lifelong grudges… This is not rocket science. If they were not sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qa’ida before, after you bomb the shit out of them, they will be.”

There continues to be no information released about the use of armed drones in Afghanistan although it is certain that they are being used with pictures of the newest British Reaper drone arriving at Kandahar appearing today.

Proliferation

Drone proliferation also continues with Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) signing a $400m deal this week to supply Russian company Oboronprom with drone ‘kits’ for assembly in Russia.

“The main aim of our project is to develop a centre or competence of world-class unmanned vehicle manufacturing in Russia,” says Oboronprom director general Andrey Reus. “In co-operation with IAI we expect to become a major player in the market within the shortest possible time.”

Writing in the Financial Times this week, just two days before suspended from the parliamentary Labour Party over allegations about his expenses, former European Minister Denis MacShane argued that European governments need to combine to build ‘Eurodrone’ to export around the world.

“The model should be that of a Kalashnikov [machine gun]: a robust, simple to make and easy to use design to which other specifications can be added as needs arise. This will require some surrendering of national military-industrial prerogatives. But just as the Airbus successfully replaced failed national aircraft such as the Comet or Caravelle, a Eurodrone could showcase Europe’s ability to produce a world-class model for worldwide export.”

Hopefully, with MacShane as its advocate, ‘Eurodrone’ will remain stuck on the drawing board.

Drone wars: As the lawyers argue, manufacturers get on with it

01/09/2010Chris Cole

The growing use of unmanned drones in armed conflicts around the world seems set to continue into the future despite calls for restraint and regulation. As legal groups in the US file lawsuits to try to prevent the drone assassination of a US citizen in Yemen, arguing that the US must stick to international law, weapons manufacturers like Raytheon are pressing ahead and designing new lighter weapons specifically for drones use. Robert Francois, vice president of advanced missile systems and unmanned systems at Raytheon told Flight Global, for example, that they are developing three new missiles specifically for drone use:

The Small Tactical Munition is about 10cm (4 inches) in diameter, 61cm long and weighs in at 5.9kg (13lbs) with GPS/inertial navigational system (INS) and a semi-active laser (SAL) seeker for targeting personnel and light vehicles.

The 15kg Griffin is a short-range, air-to-surface missile is tube launched, also featuring GPS/INS and SAL guidance and is smaller and lighter than the Hellfire.

Filling in the 45kg gap is Monsoon, for targeting buildings, trucks and personnel, with GPS/INS, otnal SAL and an 18kg warhead.

Meanwhile at the USAF Academy in Colorado, cadets are also being encouraged to design weapons for future drone wars. Ideas that have been presented to a recent gathering of UAV experts in Denver include drones spraying each other with acid and drones shooting nets to try to capture and down other drones.

Far from being a future phenomenon, however, drone proliferation continues apace. Just this week, the UK placing a further $5m order with Lockheed Martin for additional Desert Hawk III surveillance drones for use in Afghanistan. A condition of the order is that the drones must be delivered in the Autumn.

But many would argue that the proliferation of drone wars urgently needs to be stopped. A recent article in Foreign Policy Journal makes the interesting point that Mossad (and others of the ilk) cannot have failed to contrast the international furore around the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel with the virtual silence that surround the US drone assassinations and drawn the conclusion that if the US can do it silently with drones, so can they. The FPJ article goes on to call for a debate on drones that

“should engage authoritative policymakers scholars, legal experts and other people with knowledge and understanding relevant to carry out an informed and beneficial discussion aimed at the introduction of international rules that would identify constraints, introduce a well-thought out supervision, and define sanctions helpful in dealing with uncontrolled proliferation of this new form of warfare.”

The US lawsuit launched yesterday (31^st August) in the US by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) argues that the US does not have the authority under international law or the constitution to carry out extrajudicial killings outside declared wars. They also reiterate the well made point that

“targeting individuals for execution by drone who are suspected of terrorism but have not been convicted or even charged – without oversight, judicial process or disclosed standards for placement on kill lists – poses the risk that the government will erroneously target the wrong people. In recent years, the U.S. government has detained many men as terrorists, only for courts or the government itself to discover later that the evidence was wrong or unreliable.”

Current lawsuits not withstanding, it is highly likely that drone wars and drone assassinations will continue until public opposition grows, and they are specifically outlawed. In the recent past anti-personnel landmines and cluster bombs have been outlawed despite the best efforts of, and huge oppostion from, military planners and the defence industry. For campaigners, it’s time to get back in the saddle.