US - Terrorists 'Drones of Death' unstoppable

Think of them as intelligent V2 rockets.

It may sound like science fiction, but the prospect that suicide bombers and hijackers could be made redundant by flying robots is a real one, according to experts.

The technology for remote-controlled light aircraft is now highly advanced, widely available -- and, experts say, virtually unstoppable.

Models with a wingspan of five metres (16 feet), capable of carrying up to 50 kilograms (110 pounds), remain undetectable by radar.

And thanks to satellite positioning systems, they can now be programmed to hit targets some distance away with just a few metres (yards) short of pinpoint accuracy.

Security services the world over have been considering the problem for several years, but no one has yet come up with a solution.

This isn't in the future, it's now.

In August 2002, for example, the Colombian military reported finding nine small remote-controlled planes at a base it had taken from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

On April 11, 2005 the Lebanese Shiite militia group, Hezbollah, flew a pilotless drone over Israeli territory, on what it called a "surveillance" mission. The Israeli military confirmed this and responded by flying warplanes over southern Lebanon.

And let's not forget Saddam's 'Drones of Death'.

New York: Saddam Hussein has a brutal range of weapons at his disposal including specially developed "drones of death" which could unleash devastating chemical and biological attacks, military analysts have said.

Iraq's military has tested at least three types of the robot aircraft designed to spray poisonous toxins over civilian areas, according to UN documents.

Each is fitted with special nozzles and containers mounted on its wings that can carrying over 300 litres of liquid anthrax.

Who needs to hijack an airliner when you can make one of these for pennies? Here is a photograph taken by the UN WMD inspectors of an Iraq 'Drone of Death'.



You wouldn't even have to worry about launching one from Mexico or Canada. You could launch one of these from a small boat. Knowing al Qaeda, they would probably launch several from many boats around the coasts.

We need to be thinking outside the box.
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