Drones

US Follows Islamic Terrorists’ Use of Explosive UAVs

Warfare against IEDs (improvised explosive devices) has been on the US Defense Administration agenda for a long time. Lessons have been learned also from Israel’s operational activities in this field. In mid-2016 the U.S. Department of Defense asked Congress for an additional $20 million to develop countermeasures to the growing Islamic terrorist use of cheap commercial UAVs. The Islamic terrorists, especially ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), have been using these UAVs more frequently in the last few years and the Department of Defense believes ISIL is planning to eventually use these commercial UAVs as flying bombs. The defense administration organization JIDO has long been working on better ways to detect and deal with non-flying IEDs and considers bomb equipped UAVs a flying IED.