The weekend attack of kamikaze drones in a reported failed assassination attempt against Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro elevates them in experts’ eyes to terrorists’ new weapon of choice.
These aren’t pilotless aircraft from which weapons are fired, but explosives-laden drones intended to do their damage when they crash into something.
Six "terrorists and hired killers" were arrested for Saturday’s attack during a military parade in the capital of Caracas, the BBC News reported, and seven soldiers were injured in the attack, according to Interior Minister Néstor Reverol.
On Thursday, Yemen Rebels said they attacked Abu Dhabi airport in the United Arab Emirates with similar drones, Bloomberg reported.
The UAE denied the Yemeni Shiite Houthi had attacked the Abu Dhabi Airport, saying in a tweet that there had been “an incident involving a supply vehicle in Terminal 1 airside area of the airport.”
Details surrounding both incidents remain vague, but both could encourage other tech savvy groups and individuals to follow suit and use drones to commit political violence, said Bernard Hudson, a former director of counterterrorism at the CIA writing for The Washington Post.
The Islamic State already has been experimenting with weaponizing commercially available drones and using them against Iraqi forces in and around Mosul.
The problem is that weaponized drones offer a tactical advantage in that they can be flown much lower than can be detected by most current technology, leaving both big targets like airports and smaller targets like heads of state vulnerable to attack.
Even if a drone were carrying small amounts of explosives, it would be enough to bring down a civilian aircraft in flight, Hudson said in the Post.
Militarized drones such as those reportedly used by the Iranian-backed Houthis could carry more explosives at speeds reaching 100 miles per hour for up to 400 miles and, with airports not designed to guard against attacks from the sky, these flying devices could wreak havoc.
Heads of state are also prone to attack as they are constantly moving about to various meetings and public appearances.
“Weaponized drones are firmly in the hands of non-state actors,” Hudson concluded. “No one is safe. Not heads of state. Not the flying public. We cannot afford delay in devising ways to combat this new peril.”
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