{"id":65374,"date":"2013-09-04T05:20:05","date_gmt":"2013-09-04T04:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/al-qaeda-working-to-defeat-us-drones-since-2010-report\/65374\/"},"modified":"2013-09-04T05:20:05","modified_gmt":"2013-09-04T04:20:05","slug":"al-qaeda-working-to-defeat-us-drones-since-2010-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/al-qaeda-working-to-defeat-us-drones-since-2010-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Al-Qaeda working to defeat US drones since 2010 – report"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Published time: September 04, 2013 04:13 <\/span>
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An X-47B pilot-less drone combat aircraft (Reuters \/ Rich-Joseph Facun)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

For the past three years, Al-Qaeda has sought to hire engineers and other experts to help the terrorist organization fend off US drone strikes that have increasingly hobbled the militant network, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden.<\/p>\n

\n Drone warfare throughout Yemen and Pakistan has pushed remaining
\n Al-Qaeda leaders into secluded areas of the Middle East. From
\n there, they have attempted to shoot down, hijack, or otherwise
\n incapacitate drones with help from operatives with backgrounds in
\n science or mechanics. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n The revelations are included in a top-secret report titled
\n \u201cThreats to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,\u201d disclosed to The
\n Washington Post by former National Security agency contractor
\n Edward Snowden and first published on Tuesday. The document
\n chronicles a summary of intelligence assessments collected by
\n American spy agencies since 2006.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n In July 2010, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), a US spy
\n agency, discovered digital communication from top Al-Qaeda
\n leaders revealing that the terrorist network assembled a
\n \u201cstrategy guide<\/i>\u201d that explained how \u201cto anticipate and
\n defeat<\/i>\u201d drones to militants around the world.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n The manual made it clear that radical Islamists had invested in
\n technology that would have scrambled a drone\u2019s GPS signal and
\n infrared tags, thereby eliminating the aircraft\u2019s capability to
\n accurately hit a target. US officials acknowledged the
\n technology\u2019s satellite vulnerability as early as 2011, when a
\n declassified document warned of \u201cincreasingly capable
\n adversaries<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n Militants have also employed small radio-controlled hobby planes
\n and observation balloons in an effort to decipher drones\u2019 flight
\n paths, according to The Post.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n DIA analysts wrote that Al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan were
\n \u201cdetermining the practical application of technologies being
\n developed for battlefield applications<\/i>\u201d while \u201ccell
\n leadership is tracking the progress of each project and can
\n redirect components from one project to another<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n A 2010 report from the CIA described how Al-Qaeda recruiters no
\n longer preferred \u201cordinary fighters<\/i>,\u201d instead opting for
\n \u201cspecialist staff<\/i>\u201d who were familiar with missile
\n technology. In March of this year the English-language magazine
\n Azan, which is sympathetic to Al-Qaeda, included seeking
\n technological advice.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cAny opinions, thoughts, idea and practical implementations to
\n defeat this drone technology must be communicated to us as early
\n as possible because these would aid greatly\u2026against the
\n crusader-zionist enemy<\/i>,\u201d the text read, as quoted by The
\n Post.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n Nothing in the new disclosure indicates that Al-Qaeda has
\n successfully brought down a drone, but the organization\u2019s
\n attempts to develop laser detectors \u2014 and potentially cloud a
\n drone\u2019s location or vision capabilities \u2014 have alarmed US
\n analysts. In 2009, Iraqi insurgents proved their ability to hack
\n a drone\u2019s video feed and monitor its flight path.\n<\/p>\n

\n The DIA noted in 2011 that an \u201cAl-Qaeda-affiliated research
\n and development cell currently lacks the technical knowledge to
\n successfully integrate and deploy counter-drone strike
\n systems<\/i>.\u201d However, if engineers could suddenly \u201covercome
\n these substantial design challenges, we believe such a system
\n probably would be highly disruptive for US operations in
\n Afghanistan and Pakistan<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n The drone program has become one of the benchmarks of the US
\n counter-terror policy. Each unmanned aircraft is equipped with a
\n camera that allows the pilot – from a military base in the United
\n States – to spend weeks monitoring a region where a target is
\n thought to be hiding.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n When an Al-Qaeda fugitive has been positively identified, often
\n while driving in a vehicle, a US commander approves the strike,
\n allowing the pilot to remotely shoot a missile from the drone and
\n incinerate the target.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n This method has proved successful at hunting suspected terrorists
\n hiding in locations unreachable to US troops, but is thought to
\n have killed thousands of civilians throughout the Middle
\n East.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n While officials refuse to acknowledge specific numbers or events,
\n the attacks have contributed to deep anti-American sentiment,
\n particularly in Pakistan, where USA Today estimated that strikes
\n have eliminated approximately 2,505 to 3,584 terror suspects and
\n 407 to 928 civilians.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n Cognizant of the growing unease, intelligence agencies have
\n suggested that \u201cdrone strike<\/i>\u201d never be used to describe an
\n attack from an unmanned aircraft, saying it is \u201ca loaded
\n term<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cDrones connote mindless automatons with no capability for
\n independent thought or action<\/i>,\u201d the report stated. \u201cStrike
\n connotes a first attack, which leaves the victim unable to
\n respond. Other phrases employed to evoke an emotional response
\n include \u2018Kill List,\u2019 \u2018Hit Squads,\u2019 \u2018Robot Warfare,\u2019 or \u2018Aerial
\n Assassins<\/i>.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Republished from: RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published time: September 04, 2013 04:13 An X-47B pilot-less drone combat aircraft (Reuters \/ Rich-Joseph Facun) For the past three years, Al-Qaeda has sought to hire engineers and other experts to help the terrorist organization fend off US drone strikes that have increasingly hobbled the militant network, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden. Drone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-65374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}