China considered using drone in Myanmar to kill wanted drug lord
After wanted Naw Kham eluded capture, China weighed using unmanned aircraft on foreign soil
The hunt for a Myanmese drug lord wanted for killing 13 Chinese sailors in 2011 could have ended with a drone strike launched on foreign soil, China's top drug tsar told the Global Times newspaper.
Liu Yuejin, director of the public security ministry's anti-drug bureau, said one of the plans to end the months-long manhunt for drug lord Naw Kham was to strafe a mountain hideout in northeastern Myanmar using unmanned aircraft.
Naw Kham was the ringleader of a large drug trafficking outfit based in the Golden Triangle - the mountainous drug-producing region in Southeast Asia covering areas of Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
"One plan was to use an unmanned aerial vehicle to carry 20kg of TNT to bomb the area, but the plan was rejected because we were ordered to catch him alive," Liu told the newspaper, published by People's Daily.
One plan was to use an unmanned aerial vehicle to carry 20kg of TNT to bomb the area, but the plan was rejected because we were ordered to catch him alive
According to the report, if the plan had been carried out, China's Beidou satellite navigation system would have guided the drones into Myanmar - a move that would have sparked international controversy.