Crude drones: Prepare better to tackle the newest terror threat
The attack on an Indian Air Force (IAF) base in Jammu, reportedly conducted using a crude drone not far from the Line of Control with Pakistan, highlights the introduction of a new phase of threats faced by India’s military installations. The writing was on the wall, of asymmetric warfare eventually finding its feet in the volatile Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) region.
In 2018, the Hmeimim air base, near Latakia, in Syria, operated largely by Russia, came under attack by drones. The attack gave a view of the proliferation of this technology, usually synonymous with United States’s counterterror policies, led by the silhouette of the infamous MQ-9
Reaper, as a weapon that was now accessible to terror groups as well. The Hmeimim attack is the closest to what happened in Jammu, as Russian jets and other equipment at the Syrian base reportedly were damaged.
However, the fact that drones made from scrap and duct-tape, carrying improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were able to damage conventional aircraft on ground, worth millions of dollars, brought forward a new set of challenges for defence policymakers.
The history of drones in the hands of militant and terror groups can be traced back to Syria between 2013 and 2015 when well-educated and technology-savvy fighters from Europe and beyond joined the then fledgling Islamic State (IS), bringing with them the plan to have an air wing. This began first with drones made from scratch, using scrap found in the war zones of Syria and Iraq, and then modifying commercially available quadcopters to carry IEDs and other explosives.
During the height of IS’s run, quadcopters used for shooting film or sport, were smuggled into Syria and Iraq. According to Conflict Armament Research, a drone purchased in India in 2016, and activated in the United Kingdom in October of the same year, was found in Tal Afar, northern Iraq, a few miles from the then IS stronghold of Mosul.
Later that year, IS had claimed that its fleet of drones had killed or wounded 39 Iraqi soldiers in a one-week period. And beyond the kinetic effects, many IS drone attacks were also recorded by on-board cameras, providing fodder for the group’s tremendous online propaganda outreach.
However, there are caveats in deciphering threat perceptions. While the successful use of Turkey-manufactured Bayraktar TB2 drones by Azerbaijan against Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh war last year did present a significant upscaling of the use of drones in warfare, it cannot be compared to the Jammu incident.
The Azeri-Armenia war was conventional, between states, and the Bayratkar drones are designed only for military purposes and are not crude drones. This comparison, often used in Indian public discourse, needs course correction.
The use of crude drones over the past years has only escalated. In 2019, reports suggested the Maoists had used a drone for surveillance over a security camp in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar. From attacks on oil refineries in Saudi Arabia on the sidelines of the Yemen war to an assassination attempt against Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in 2018, using exploding drones, the proliferation of this technology has already become a challenge.
The threat of asymmetric warfare such as crude drones from an Indian perspective is not new. In fact, IAF chief highlighted rogue drones as a risk in 2020. This should have already been factored into base protection and response. While technology itself is at the core of a response, Jammu is a reminder that technologies themselves are not exclusive to a military or a State anymore.