A SCREAMING COMES ACROSS THE SKY @ascreamingacrossthesky - Tumblr Blog

Prelude to violence: In North Waziristan, people looked up to watch as drones circled for hours, or even days, before striking (via Obama’s Drone War)

#Drones #New Yorker

ISIS: We Nabbed an Iranian Drone - The Daily Beast

#Drones #ISIS

“Any counterterrorism effort will require an element of secrecy. But with our drone programme, not only do we not know who we have killed, the legal guidelines have loopholes large enough to drive a flying death robot through." - John Oliver

#Drones #John Oliver

This video allegedly shows a Hezbollah killer drone incinerate Al Qaeda militants in Lebanon

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Clarke claimed that an unarmed Predator drone had spotted bin Laden in October 2000. After that experience, Clinton gave orders to create an armed drone force, though under George W. Bush the CIA and Defense Department balked at using drones to target bin Laden, even in the days leading up to 9/11.

Amazon Kindle: Your Highlights

#Drones #Killing Machine #Lloyd C. Gardner

When a full history of the drone is written, Clinton’s memorandum of notification amending the Reagan ban on assassinations will be one starting point. The memorandum permitted “lethal” counterterrorism actions against a short list of named targets, including Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants. Killing could be approved only if capture was not deemed “feasible.” “A week after the Sept. 11 attacks,” reported Karen DeYoung in the Washington Post, “the Bush administration amended the finding again, dropping the list of named targets and the caveat on ‘feasible’ capture.” As a Bush administration official told DeYoung: “By design, it was written as broadly as possible.”

Amazon Kindle: Your Highlights

#Drones #Killing Machine #Lloyd C. Gardner

There hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities we’ve been able to develop.

Amazon Kindle: Your Highlights

#Drones #Killing Machine #Lloyd C. Gardner

droneresearchlab

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BT alleged to have supplied high-speed fibre-optic cable to aid US drone strikes | World news | The Guardian The government has been asked to investigate whether BT is aiding drone strikes with a specially built military internet cable connecting US air force facilities in Northamptonshire to a base for unmanned craft in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa. Evidence is mounting that the $23m (£13m) fibre-optic circuit built by BT in 2012 was installed to facilitate air strikes in Yemen and Somalia by US air force drones, according to a complaint filed by the human rights group Reprieve. The circuit runs from RAF Croughton, a base where US air force personnel staff a command, control, communications and computer support hub for global operations organised by the US military. Its ultimate destination is Camp Lemonnier in the small republic of Djibouti. A former French Foreign Legion outpost refitted in a $1.4bn project commissioned in 2012, Camp Lemonnier is where the Pentagon has established the most important base for drone operations outside Afghanistan. The circuit BT built can carry live video images, transporting digital information at the rate of 2.5 gigabits per second, about 30 times faster than BT's superfast home broadband service Infinity, which advertises 80 megabits per second.

#Drones #BT #Broadband

Drones, drones, everywhere: UN ramping up peacekeeper surveillance flights | Al Jazeera America Forces in DRC and elsewhere use unmanned aerial vehicles for bird’s-eye view, despite some countries’ prying fears.

#Drones #UN #DRC

Since June, however, when President Obama ordered troops to return to Iraq in small numbers and the skies over the country became thick with U.S. warplanes, military officials have imposed a blackout on information about where those forces are coming from. “Due to host nation sensitivities and operational security, we are not detailing locations of specific bases of origin, aircraft or ordnance types,” said Maj. Curtis J. Kellogg, a spokesman for Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East. Another base that the Pentagon will only identify as being located in Southwest Asia is Ali al Salem Air Base in Kuwait. Nicknamed “the Rock” by U.S. forces, it is the closest drone base to Iraq. Predator drones from the Air Force’s 46th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron only have to fly about only 40 miles to the border.

U.S. relies on Persian Gulf bases for airstrikes in Iraq - The Washington Post

#Drones #Surveillance #Secrecy

A downed Israeli drone could advance Iran’s own drone program - Quartz

Drones have become an especially important component of Tehran’s military arsenal in recent years. Last November, Iran unveiled its first predator drone, the Shahed 129, which was largely based on an Israeli Elbit Hermes 450 model. The drone shot down yesterday is believed to have also been an Hermes.

David Cenciotti, the founder of the blog The Aviationist, tells Quartz that Iran has been quite adept at implementing the technologies captured from these downed drones into manufacturing their own UAVs. The country, he says, now has a small but fairly robust domestic drone program.

“With access to foreign technology restricted by a long-lasting embargo, Iran has developed several domestic drones,” said Cenciotti. “Some of them are similar to the Israeli model Hermes 450 model. Others are based on US models captured after they were shot down or crash landed during spy missions over Iranian airspace.”

Iran’s domestic drone industry, Cenciotti explains, now exports to its allies. Iranian-made UAVs have been spotted in Syria, Venezuela and in the Gaza Strip, where they have been operated by Hamas.

#Drones #Iran

Navy: First time manned and unmanned aircraft operate from a carrier

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Unidentified warplanes on Monday bombed a small arms depot and other locations in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, that are controlled by Islamist-aligned militias, suggesting that a foreign state had intervened in the escalating battle for control of the city.

#Unidentified Aerial Vehicles #Drones #Visibility is a trap #Lbiya

This is from the Drone Survival Guide, a to-scale silhouette mock-up of the world's drones by Ruben Pater. (via Here's Your Complete Guide To Drones - Business Insider)

#Ruben Pater #Drones #Drone Survival Guide