Drones bring new terror attack fears

On July 16, 2024 a would-be presidential assassin grazed former President Donald J. Trump with a shot fired from a long rifle. Sadly, there is a long history of guns being used in political violence and terrorism. The new element was that the shooter scouted the whole scene hours earlier with a drone to analyze defenses, the terrain, and pick his location. What if he had used an armed drone to launch his attack? In the war in Ukraine both sides are using drones to kill people, trucks, artillery pieces, bunkers, aircraft, naval vessels, and even tanks. This developing technology brings new fears of what drones could potentially do in the wrong hands.

Drones have the ability to enable terrorists to conduct multiple attacks nearly simultaneously and the attacker does not have to ever be present at the scene of the attack so a terror attack would not necessarily be suicidal. Drones provide a terrorist with standoff capability and present a new challenge for law enforcement.

Since the early 2000s, the use of airborne drones by private individuals in a variety of fields has become commonplace.

Al-Qaeda has already attempted an attack in Pakistan using multiple drones but that was stopped by local law enforcement and ISIS used drones in its military operations in Iraq and Syria. Two Russian military bases in Syria were attacked by drone swarms in 2018 and Houthi rebels in Yemen have used Iranian made drones earlier this year to attack international shipping in the Red Sea and has even used them in attacks on the U.S. Navy.

A terror attack using drones on a political rally, an inauguration, or a civilian mass casualty event like an NFL stadium is a growing real concern for Homeland Security and law enforcement.

THE VIEWS OF SUBMITTED EDITORIALS MAY NOT BE THE EXPRESS VIEWS OF THE ALABAMA GAZETTE.