The Islamic State has a new tactic for causing carnage on the battlefield in Iraq: commercial drones outfitted with improvised explosives devices.
The Pentagon has asked Congress earlier this week if it can shift funds already allocated for specific anti-ISIS purposes to a counter-drone plan. Military officials want flexibility to use $2.5 billion approved for 2016; roughly $20 million in seed-money is requested for approaching drone threats.
The Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Agency told Bloomberg News on Thursday that ISIS has deployed “quadcopters and fixed-wing type drones you can buy commercially,” as “both an IED delivery system and for reconnaissance.”
The Pentagon’s budget request told lawmakers that funding would “identify, acquire, integrate and conduct testing” of technologies that may “counter the effects of unmanned aerial systems and the threats they pose to U.S. forces,” Bloomberg reported.
David Small, who works for the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Agency, told the news agency that unmanned aerial systems used by ISIS typically weigh 50 pounds. The Sunni terror group also uses them for propaganda purposes.
Army Colonel Chris Garver, the Defense Department’s top spokesman in Iraq, told Bloomberg that drone reconnaissance has been used in Makhmour in Ninevah Province.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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