Russia’s attack shows drones are high on hit lists – and often under the radar

Name: US retaliates for Kabul airport attack with drone strikes on Afghan capital and border region
Uploaded: 2022-02-27T00:00:17.000Z
Duration: 2 min 52 s
Description: US retaliates for Kabul airport attack with drone strikes on Afghan capital and border region

Autonomous weapons have become a feature of modern warfare, with more than 100 militaries having armed or unarmed drone capability

With technologies for countering them yet to catch up, targeting Ukraine’s drones was an early priority in the Russian offensive

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The US’ Predator drone was used to launch missiles in Afghanistan and to hunt for Osama bin Laden. Photo: AP

Kristin Huang

Published: 8:00am, 27 Feb 2022Updated: 4:58pm, 27 Feb 2022

Experts are calling for higher awareness of the operations of drones in low-altitude airspace as the autonomous weapons become increasingly active, especially during conflicts.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia’s state-run news agency said 16 people of various nationalities had been wounded at an airport after the interception and destruction of a drone carrying explosives, which it said was launched by Yemen’s Iran-backed rebels.

And on Thursday, drones were among the first batch of attack targets that Russia’s forces destroyed in Ukraine, along with key military assets such as airbases.

Military and civilian drones proliferated from the late 1990s, and existing air defence systems struggled to detect and destroy them.

02:52

US retaliates for Kabul airport attack with drone strikes on Afghan capital and border region

The American-developed Predator drone was introduced in 2000, and was used in Afghanistan to launch missiles and in the search for Osama bin Laden.

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