Drone ‘swarm’ attacks new terror tactic
Western countries are increasingly vulnerable to "swarm" attacks by armed drones as terrorist groups adopt new tactics, a US military expert has warned.
Co-ordinated attacks from different directions by sophisticated drones carrying explosives could also be a future style of warfare for traditional armed forces, Paul Scharre, a former Pentagon official in charge of policy on automated weapon systems, said.
He was speaking after Russian forces in Syria faced an assault by 13 makeshift drones launched from a rebel village 50 miles away. They were all directed towards the Hmeimim airbase, Russia’s military operations headquarters in Latakia province, and carried an explosive payload and a GPS navigation system. Several drones were shot down and others were neutralised by electronic jamming methods.
Scharre said that the incident represented the first "mass, saturation attack" by improvised drones. He added: "As a threat they were like individual flying IEDs [improvised explosive devices], not a swarm in the bird sense."
However, he predicted a future in which terrorist organisations and states could field multiple weaponised drones that could communicate with each other, without human control on the ground or in the air. This really would be like a swarm of birds, he said.
The US and China are leading the way in developing the concept of "swarm" drone attacks in which the unmanned systems can fly as a linked and remotely co-ordinating strike force.
"The attack on the Russian base in Syria was not really a swarm because they were not communicating with each other, this was more a saturation strike," Scharre, a former US army ranger with combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and a drone warfare specialist, said. He is now a senior fellow at the Centre for a New American Security think tank in Washington.
He envisaged a time when terrorist organisations would be able to buy commercial drones designed with algorithms that would create "swarm behaviour". He said: "Instead of being a mass of lone wolves they would become a wolf pack. That would pose a really dangerous threat."
Western governments would need to start planning now for defending against such threats.
"Bases are protected against missile and air attacks but not for a mass drone strike," he said.
To counter indiscriminate grenade-armed drone strikes last year launched by Islamic State in Mosul, a number of weapon systems were used, including machineguns, rifles and jamming equipment.
These drones were unsophisticated, off-the-shelf systems that had been adapted for warfare and their basic GPS navigation equipment could easily be jammed.