As Iraqi troops fight to liberate Mosul, terror group ISIS is reportedly using drones to attack Iraqi security forces and civilians by dropping small bombs, Military Times quoted a US Army commander in Iraq as saying.
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Small ammunitions were dropped on Iraqis using commercially available drones.
Though ISIS have been known to use drones, it was only when Iraqis moved closer to Mosul that the threat of the drone became more pronounced.
Moreover, the drones that are used by ISIS are simple ones, like the quadcopters, with ability to fly for an hour.
"It's not as if it is a large, armed UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] that is dropping munitions from the wings – but literally, a very small quadcopter that drops a small munition in a somewhat imprecise manner," said Sylvia, commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division
"They are very short-range, targeting those front-line troops from the Iraqis," Sylvia added.
The US team has been able to shoot down about 12 drones so far.
It is not known if any Iraqi soldier has been injured due to attacks from such drones. However, there has been no US army casualty from these drone attacks so far.The injuries from drone attacks have been only minimum, with some civilians wounded and their equipment being damaged.
In October 2016, ISIS made headlines when they killed two Kurdish soldiers and managed to injure two French Special Operations troops when drones strapped with explosives went off when they shot at it. There have been other instances where the terror group made use of these drones to kill people.
Use of cheap drones by militants has risen as they can be used for reconnaissance and to attack known targets.
The Washington Post reported about US Army using Battelle DroneDefender anti-drone rifle, a non-kinetic rifle that does not use bullets, to tackle the drone menace.
There are also other guns like the DroneGun that targets drones by jamming their signals.
