Venezuela attack shows the danger of armed drones
It was bound to happen sooner or later, said Jan Christoph Wiechmann in Stern (Hamburg): an assassination attempt against a head of state using a drone. Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro was attending a military parade in Caracas on 4 August when two small drones exploded in the air nearby: one crashed into a building; shrapnel from the other injured seven soldiers. The seething president blamed a plot by far-right opponents in Venezuela and Miami, masterminded, he claimed, by his long-term foe Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s outgoing president. Critics of Maduro claimed that the attack had been staged, said Scott Smith in Time (New York), so as to distract attention from Venezuela’s economic crisis – its hyperinflation and rampant unemployment – and to give him an excuse to round up opponents. And indeed one leading opposition lawmaker, Juan Requesens, has since been detained, and the arrest of another – Julio Borges, who lives in exile in Colombia – has been ordered.
Venezuela’s regime is notorious for spreading disinformation, and the truth in such cases is always hard to fathom, said Benjamín F. Deyurre in El Nuevo Herald (Miami) – but the panic on the faces of Maduro and the assembled dignitaries looked real. That suggests the attack was genuine. It was possibly carried out by disaffected soldiers inspired by the rebel police officer Óscar Pérez, who last year commandeered a helicopter and threw stun grenades at the supreme court, before being killed in a shoot-out in January. Maduro is under attack, and he looks vulnerable, said Marianella Salazar in El Nacional (Caracas). It was a “shame” that hundreds of National Guard soldiers broke ranks and stampeded for cover, while the defence minister and top brass cowered behind the president, clearly “petrified”.
The details are “murky”, but the broader message is clear, said Bernard Hudson in The Washington Post: armed drones now represent a serious terror threat. Last month, Yemeni rebels reportedly launched a drone attack against Abu Dhabi airport. Again, no one was killed and the circumstances have not been clarified. But the dangers are obvious. Military drones can carry several pounds of explosives and have a range of 400 miles. Even a hobbyist’s drone could bring down an airliner. “Weaponised drones are firmly in the hands of non-state actors. No one is safe. Not heads of state. Not the flying public. We cannot afford delay in devising ways to combat this new peril.”