ISIL brings drones to gunfight for Mosul
Extremists use modified, shop-bought aircraft to monitor and bomb government positions as depleted forces lose ground
MOSUL // First the tiny drones buzz overhead to observe Iraqi soldiers. Then, ISIL’s flying machines return to drop a small explosive device to sow panic among security forces – or deadlier still, to help guide a suicide car bomber to a target.
And the innovations are expected to keep coming because ISIL has been spending freely on technology, even as their fighters face intense pressure from coalition forces, according to Iraqi military officials. The extremists hack shopbought drones, using rigorous testing protocols and developing tactics that mimic those used by US unmanned aircraft to adapt to diminishing numbers of fighters and a battlefield that is increasingly difficult to navigate. At a warehouse in the Shura neighbourhood, the largest drone workshop uncovered so far, there were accounting spreadsheets with purchases totaling thousands of dollars a month for drone equipment. A receipt dated a few months before the Mosul operation began recorded the purchase of wires, silicon, electrical plugs, cables, rotors and GoPro cameras.
Scattered among the stacks of paper were bits and pieces of the drones themselves. Most were destroyed by ISIL as they retreated, Iraqi officers said. But pieces of styrofoam wings, fins and radio transmitters remained, piled up in the corners of the factory on a recent visit.
All the accounts were headed “board of development and military manufacturing”, some sub-headed “air observation division”. Handwritten notes instructed ISIL drone operators to write daily “mission reports” and monthly reports “about the challenges and difficulties you face as well”. Six storehouses to make and modify drones have been found recently in Mosul.
A cache of documents also obtained this month in a smaller makeshift factory by a researcher in Mosul indicates that the group is testing small drones – normally used as playthings – with deadly intent.
The researcher, Vera Mironova, said her discovery of the drone paperwork – which includes lists in English and Arabic of parts and a file marked “Tool Kit” that is a checklist of several dozen essentials – is a sign of what is essentially a programme to have machines make up for a shortage in manpower. Items 1-5 were GoPro and chargers, battery cable, laptop, explosives, and devices.
Ms Mironova, a fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, said the use of drones to drop explosives or direct more deadly payloads was an adaptation to the decrease in the number of attackers available.
Early in the Mosul fighting, she said, suicide bombers tended to be deployed haphazardly, more to frighten than to kill. But it did not take the group long to need a new approach.
Iraqi security forces report seeing drones used by ISIL for surveillance as early as 2015 in Iraq’s western Anbar province.
The first hints of the new tactics cameearly last year, when Turk- ish forces in northern Iraq saw toy- like drones overhead and then, within 15 minutes, were attacked by accurate incoming fire, according to Jonathan Schroden, director of the Centre for Stability and Development at the Center for Naval Analyses.
“From there it was pretty clear where that was headed,” Mr Schroden said. “They will look to continue to mimic what the US and western militaries have done with drones. They would look to integrate the kill chain.”
With Mosul’s streets filled with debris, the drones can serve as a way for operators to direct people on the ground – including suicide attackers. The planes with explosives do less actual damage, but can sow panic among troops fighting the extremists.
“First they come to observe and then they return carrying bombs,” said Maj Firas Mehdi, who was hit by shrapnel when a drone dropped a small bomb on his position a week earlier.
A small, black rotary drone flew over their position from the ISIL-held neighbourhood a few hundred metres away. Two Iraqi special forces soldiers rushed Maj Mehdi into a concrete house for cover while half a dozen more spread out into the street and fired wildly into the air.
An Iraqi special forces officer said at least three Iraqi troops had been killed by the drones and dozens injured.
Iraqi special forces Brig Gen Haider Fadhil said that in addition to surveillance and dropping bombs, drones were being used to guide car bombs in real time.
“They were giving instructions by radio to the suicide driver and following his progress” by video feed. “But many of these planes were shot down by our forces,” Brig Gen Fadhil said.
An Iraqi intelligence officer said most of the drone parts were being bought in Turkey and smuggled into Iraq through Syria.
‘ They will look to mimic what the US and western militaries have done with drones Jonathan Schroden defence analyst