The new era of ‘war by remote’
Combat drones in the hands of rogue states and violent militias have become a critical element of asymmetric warfare
It is a new chapter in Middle East warfare. Experts say “war by remote” is a growing trend in the region. And most countries are insufficiently prepared to deal with the growing security challenge posed by high-tech, remotecontrolled unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or combat drones.
The widespread availability, increasing technological sophistication and falling costs of drones are injecting a new dose of uncertainty into the Middle East and North Africa. Bigger armies with more lethal weaponry are finding themselves increasingly vulnerable as weaponized drones become a critical element of asymmetric warfare.
Michael Knights, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, has been following warfare in the Middle East for 20 years. According to him, the region is now “seeing players from all sides using drones — whether they are a very small group such as (Daesh) terrorists or a group with Iranian support” such as Yemen’s Houthis, who have claimed responsibility for repeated attacks on Saudi civilian infrastructure.
Yemen’s Houthis claimed responsibility for the Sept. 14 attacks on the Saudi Aramco oil-processing facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais, which caused damage that halved the crude output of the world’s top oil exporter. However, a US official has said the strike originated from southwestern Iran.
Saudi Arabia has said 18 drones along with seven missiles were used by the perpetrators of the attacks. Iran has denied involvement, but is widely suspected of having armed the Houthi militias as well as regional proxies Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Shia paramilitary groups in Iraq, with combat drones.
UAV refers to all types of small and mid-sized devices with no pilot in them. They can be controlled remotely by a ground-based pilot or can fly following a pre-defined flight plan.
Advanced drone models use GPS signals from satellites to connect as well as communicate their location to the pilot.
A UAV can be used for anything from simple photography, to surveillance, to carrying payloads including explosives and missiles. The Reaper model, for instance, can carry more than 1.5 tons of ordnance and can be operated by a ground-based pilot stationed somewhere hundreds of miles away.
The Houthi militias have been using drones in combat since the start of the Yemen war. The first appeared to be elementary, off-theshelf drones, but later ones have been nearly identical to Iraniandesigned models.
Targets have included the holy city of Makkah, airports, oilfields and pipelines, oil installations and desalination plants. UN investigators have suggested that the Houthis’ new UAV-X drone may have a range of up to 1,500 kilometers, making them able to reach Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In mid-May this year, drone warfare grabbed the headlines when oil tankers and pipelines were targeted by remotecontrolled bombs that forced Saudi Aramco to suspend pipeline operations. The UN said the Houthis were using UAVs for reconnaissance, surveillance and attacks. Incidentally, the country that was the first to create a national drone program in its military was Israel. Companies such as Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries, Rafael, UVision and Aeronautics have been developing new technologies for both waging drone warfare and countering UAV attacks.
Israel’s defense industry produces drones such as the Heron TP, which can fly more than 1,000 kilometers for 30 hours, to monitor threats from Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. Drones such as the SkyStriker and Harpy, which are equipped with warheads and can launch precise long-range strikes, belong to the category known as “loitering munitions.”
Yossi Mekelberg, a professor of international relations at Regent’s University London, said the Middle East was “seeing more and more unmanned vehicles” in the field. “The thing is drones are cheaper — you don’t risk pilots by using them as it’s all remote-controlled It is high-tech, it is precise and, in many ways unfortunately, it will become the preferred option where possible,” he told Arab News.
“The most advanced users of drones by far are Iran and Iranianbacked groups such as the Houthi militias in Yemen,” said Knights. As examples, he cites airborne drones and stealth amphibious drone boats, such as nine Houthi explosive boats designed to target international shipping off Yemen’s Red Sea coast that were destroyed by airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led military coalition. “A drone boat guides itself using an electrical eye,” he said. “I have been on one. You can hear it try and turn the rudder of a ship. So the Iranians have provided the Houthis with really advanced capabilities — drones that can hit and destroy with great precision.”
A UN Security Council report said the most commonly used UAV in the Houthi arsenal for “loitering munitions” was Qasef-1, which had a lot in common with the Iranian made Ababil-2/T UAV, which has been used in Yemen since 2016. The UN investigators found that the new UAVs are characterized by distinctive V-shaped tail fins and a more powerful engine. One of them, the Samad 2/3 UAV, carries a warhead with 18 kilograms of explosives mixed with ball bearings.
Hezbollah too is developing its drone technology. The Lebanese militia has been using combat drones based on Iranian technology since 2004, flying them into or near Israeli airspace. Hezbollah is also said to have used drones in Syria as part of its role in aiding the regime of President Bashar Assad.
From all accounts, Knights says, Israel’s dominance in drone warfare is being challenged by Iran and its regional allies and proxies.
Experts say drones are useful in an important way: Deniability. For example, Israel is widely suspected to have been the source of the drones that were deployed in Iraq and Lebanon in recent weeks, but the Israeli government saw no reason to own up.
“You don’t risk pilots in doing this,” said Knights, adding “for the same reason you can deny you are behind any attack, which means it might sometimes be tempting for decision-makers to use it in their war and deny using it or to create battlefield ambiguity.”
None of this is to say weaponized drones do not have their downsides. Knights said that once detected, drones can be destroyed instantly.
“You can send a signal to blow itself up and zap it once it gets closer to its target,” he told Arab News. “You can shoot it down using a number of weapons, from an expensive missile to guns, sniper rifles, or even guns that fire nets, and snare it.”
A drawback about a drone guided by GPS, according to Knights, is “you can know exactly where it started if it is still intact. Drones, if captured intact, leave a digital footprint. Deniability is not perfect with these things.” Additionally, as Mekelberg points out, drone warfare is not risk-free, citing the incident earlier this month when Hezbollah downed an Israeli unmanned aircraft outside a southern Lebanese town.
“It (drones) brings a danger — when in Lebanon it didn’t go exactly to plan — it created tensions which could have led to a much bigger round of tensions between Hezbollah and Israel,” he said.
Furthermore, he says, with drones showing growing value in the battlefield, more and more terror groups are turning to unmanned aircraft.
With the growing threat, Mekelberg said, more countries need to step up their airspace security platform that detect, classify, and mitigate all drone threats.
If recent developments are any guide, the world has yet to see the full capability of combat drones in the sprawling Middle East theater.