Islamic State documents from Syria reveal plans to increasingly weaponize commercially available drones, Jenan Moussa of Al Aan TV reports.
Moussa identified ISIS’s main drone developer, who wrote detailed plans to load 40 pounds of explosives on a drone and turn it into an “air to ground missile.” Moussa notes that current ISIS drones are only capable of delivering a two-pound payload. Whether the plans remain in development remains unclear, due to the unknown status of ISIS’s main drone developer.
ISIS currently uses drones to drop small improvised explosive devices on enemy troops, for surveillance, and to shoot propaganda videos. ISIS announced the formation of a new drone warfare unit in January, whose sole purpose is to inflict “a new source of horror for the apostates.” The terrorist group said the new unit killed nearly 40 Iraqi soldiers in just one week.
“The Mosul offensive has seen this kind of drone warfare step up a level, with Islamic State (IS) employing drones armed with an assortment of different munitions, sometimes in conjunction with other assets, to deadly effect,” a recent open-source intelligence study by Bellingcat on ISIS drones notes.
The report continues that ISIS’s modifications to commercial drones “enable IS to drop theses munitions from drones, often with surprising accuracy, at heights of up to several hundred, possibly even 1000, feet.”
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