Drones are awesome. You can get tremendous photos and scare the shit out of your neighbor’s dog. However, there have been worries ever since they have become popular that they will be used for evil. The first case of a drone being used as a lethal weapon of terror has apparently happened and it has been carried out by the reprehensible ISIS.
On October 2, an alleged attack happened in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. French troops from Task Force Hydra have been fighting alongside Kurdish Peshmerga fighters against Islamic State for the last two years. The booby-trapped drone, the size of a model airplane, flew towards the soldiers at a checkpoint and landed near them. When the anti-IS unit tried taking the drone apart the aircraft exploded and killed two Kurdish fighters and critically injured two French soldiers, who were immediately sent to France to be treated at the Percy-Clamart military hospital near Paris.
The drone had been packed with explosives.
“The explosive device inside was disguised as a battery – there was a very small amount of explosives in it, but it was enough to go off and kill them,” a senior American official who had been provided with a detailed report said about the blast.
security forces fear drones may be used in terror attacks at major events
French government spokesman Stéphane Le Foll confirmed that two members of the French special forces were injured in the attack on Wednesday.
Daesh has been using surveillance drones to monitor enemies, but the incident is marked as the first time ISIL has successfully used a drone with explosives to kill troops fighting against them.
[TIME]