As you’ve no doubt heard, sniper(s) attacked the police protecting a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas last night, killing 5 cops. Dallas Police have released the name of one perpetrator, who was killed by police: Micah Johnson. Johnson was apparently an Army veteran; he was what experts deemed “tactically professional” based on review…
Category: Drones
Modern War: Drone Choppers Help Hunt Top-Tier Terrorist in Africa
On Jan. 14, 2014, USS Elrod left her home port in Norfolk, Virginia for what, to outsiders, might have seemed like a routine six-month trip to the Mediterranean. Carrying a detachment of four MQ-8B Fire Scout drone helicopters, the nearly 30-year-old frigate would visit various ports and train with America’s allies, according to an official…
Future Warfare: 21st Century DIY Insurgency
It started innocuously enough. The prime minister-for-life never missed the annual “Liberation Day” parade. With the drums and platoons thundering, nobody noticed as the quadcopter, barely larger than a sparrow, floated down toward the dais, its faint whirr drowned out by the industrial machinery rolling by in formation. It was at once a child’s birthday…
Surveillance State: The Missing Piece of Obama’s Terrorist “Kill Memo” Still Haunts America
The lack of adversarial opinion for a 2011 drone strike on Anwar Al Awlaki could presage the killing of U.S. citizens in America When U.S. Pres. Barack Obama considered the unprecedented step of intentionally killing an American citizen without judicial process, he asked for a legal opinion that would provide legal cover in case he…
Book Review: Playing to the Edge, American Intelligence in the Age of Terror
by Michael V. Hayden Penguin, 448 pp When Michael Hayden was a young air force officer in the 1980s, the military stationed him as an intelligence attaché in Bulgaria. There, the man who would rise to the top of the American intelligence community in the post–September 11 era lived under constant surveillance: he and his…
Ancient History: Ye’ Merry old Days Of Spearing Those Cursed Flying Machines Called Drones
This is what happens when you fly a 21st century drone over an epic 15th century battle. Way back in the olden days, when unicorns roamed the Earth and dragons ruled the skies, before gunpowder and reflective belts and buffalo chicken MREs, your average foot soldier could throw a spear through a man’s eyeball from…
Examining Terrorist Tactics: Are Dirty Drones a Realistic Threat?
ISIS is planning to kill thousands of people by sending drones delivering radioactive material over Western cities—or so British Prime Minister David Cameron warned last week at a summit on nuclear terrorism in Washington. Rather than carrying a “dirty bomb” to disperse material with explosives, the drones would work like toxic crop sprayers—”dirty drones” perhaps—and…
Future of Warfare: First Recorded Use of “Explosive” Drone?
First there was IED’s, then VBIEDS, then Drones, then Drones Armed with Firearms, now we have “Explosive” Drones. Although the title of the article uses the word “Suicide” Drone, I see that as a misnomer; who is committing Suicide? If they are using the word as you would in describing a “Suicide Bomber”, the Operator…
Espionage Files: The Brave New World of Drone Hacking
The Israel Police and Shin Bet security service arrested a Gaza resident suspected of hacking into the feeds from Air Force drones and collecting information on troop movements and civilian flights for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group, police said Wednesday. A police statement named the suspect as Majd Ouida, 22, describing him as an…
Israel Watch: Israeli Drones Set To Take Over The World’s Skies
Israel is by far the largest exporter of military drones in the world. Take the AirMule from UrbanAero. It could have flown right off the pages of a Batman comic book. Designed to take off and land vertically with up to 1,400 pounds of cargo and zip through the air at over 100mph, this drone is…