Al-Qaeda fights back against drones
Al-Qaeda has established cells of engineers to find and exploit weaknesses in American drones, as part of an attempt to stem the heavy losses inflicted on its terrorist networks, according to secret intelligence documents.
By Rob Crilly, The Telegraph
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American drone strikes are believed to have killed at least 3000 people in the past 10 years and cut a swath through the senior ranks of militant groups along the Afghan border with Pakistan.
Documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the fugitive former intelligence contractor, and given to The Washington Post show the lengths al-Qaeda has gone to in order to counter the deadly drones.
In July 2010, a US spy agency intercepted communications suggesting senior al-Qaeda leaders had sent a guide to operatives around the world advising on how to “anticipate and defeat” unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
The Defence Intelligence Agency also reported that the group was sponsoring research to develop jammers that would hamper GPS signals and targeting systems.
Other projects included observation balloons and small radio-controlled aircraft, which insurgents planned to use for observing flight patterns of CIA drones, according to the leaked report, entitled “Threats to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles”.
Last year researchers from the University of Texas showed it was possible to hijack a drone using a technique known as “spoofing” – sending an alternative set of positioning co-ordinates from the ground.
The same technique may have been used by Iran, which claimed to have “ambushed” an American drone deployed in Afghanistan, a claim which the US denied.
Extremist publications and documents found in Mali or collected from Osama bin Laden’s final hideout in Pakistan show the huge effort spent on developing tactics to evade drones.
The first issue of Azan, published this year by the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban, appealed for help in tackling the threat.
“Any opinions, thoughts, ideas and practical implementations to defeat this drone technology must be communicated to us as early as possible because these would aid greatly … against the crusader-zionist enemy.”
The use of drones is most controversial in Pakistan’s tribal areas, where more than 360 strikes have been conducted since 2004.
Anger has focused on the number of civilians killed in strikes, but high-profile victims include Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistan Taliban who was killed in 2009, and Atiyah Abd Al Rahman, who was al-Qaeda’s second in command when he died in 2011.
