PREDATOR ATTACKS ON TAPE

Last week, it seemed like a bit of an odd move, the Air Force rush-​​ordering a slew of armed Predator drones. After all, the unmanned planes hadn’t taken out a major tar­get since 2002. And since then, they’ve been mostly rel­e­gated to spy duty.
Or so we thought.
Newly-​​released footage shows that the Predators have been actively bat­tling Iraqi gueril­las, “fir­ing Hellfire mis­siles to res­cue U.S. troops under fire in Iraq and destroy insur­gent tar­gets,” accord­ing to CNN.

The U.S. Air Force released 10 video clips… all from the sum­mer and fall of 2004, show[ing] what offi­cials say are insur­gents plant­ing road­side bombs, fir­ing at U.S. posi­tions and gath­er­ing to attack U.S. troops… The video came from sen­sors on Air Force Predator unmanned aer­ial vehi­cles…
Some of the footage was a clip of Marines under sniper assault dur­ing an August bat­tle in Najaf. A Predator responds to a call for air sup­port and fires Hellfire mis­siles at the build­ing hous­ing the sniper. The build­ing crum­bles in an explo­sion.
Another clip shows insur­gents gath­ered around armed trucks. The cross-​​hairs of the Predator locks onto one of the trucks and a mis­sile destroys it…
Pilots more than 7,000 away in Nevada, con­trol the unmanned planes from their post at Nellis Air Force Base. Their sophis­ti­cated cock­pits resem­ble a high-​​priced video game.

A really vio­lent one. Vehicles lined up in a row are there one minute, and incin­er­ated the next. Floors of build­ing are wiped out. Walls col­lapse. And city cor­ners go up in flames — all because of these killer drones.
THERE’S MORE: Of course, these Predators aren’t the only armed robots report­ing for duty in Iraq. While the fly­ing drones blast insur­gents from above, by this spring, machine gun-​​carrying Talon bots will be patrolling the streets of Mosul.

February 9th, 2005 | Drones | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.