Carnage from the sky: Experts warn of new terrorist drone threat to U.S. after New Orleans
Homeland contractor, FBI experts issue stark warnings about bomb-dropping and gun-firing drones in terrorist hands.
By Published: January 2, 2025 11:16pm
With New Year’s Day attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas exposing terrorism vulnerabilities anew, top security experts are warning that a lethal capability being perfected in the skies over Ukraine and the Middle East could soon be headed to the United States: explosives-dropping or gun-firing drones.
“There has not been enough preparation proactively to prevent an incident associated with drone warfare and not even close,” retired FBI Executive Assistant Director Christopher Piehota told Just the News on Thursday. “Government, I think, is waking up to it. But it's a day-late, dollar-short type of situation.
Piehota oversaw the FBI's counter-drone program before he retired.
"We're pretty far behind the defensive curve, so to speak. And unfortunately in the United States, it takes a tragedy for us to really snap out of our of our malaise and work against the threats proactively,” he warned. [...]
Piehota’s concerns were echoed by security experts interviewed this week by Just the News in intelligence, military and law enforcement circles and specifically cited as a major vulnerability in a study prepared for the Homeland Security Department a few months ago by the security contractor Rand Corporation.
That report obtained by Just the News warned that terrorists are increasingly targeting soft targets in crowded places – known as "ST-CP"s in intelligence parlance – and that drones are likely to being employed to carry out attacks against such targets in the near future.
“Although it has generally not been observed as of this writing in late 2023, our interview data suggested a growing concern about the prospect of uncrewed aircraft systems (UASs) being used for attacks on ST-CPs,” the December 2023 report warned. “The use of UASs against ST-CP sites has become a concern in the ST-CP security sector. The unique characteristics of UASs could see their use grow in future years."
You can read the full report here.
Rand explained why drones – which are becoming more numerous – would be attractive to strike a target in America. [...]
Even the United Nations – which has seen Iranian-built drones terrorize ships in the Red Sea, Hamas-operated drones kill Israelis during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacres and Russian drones inflict carnage in Ukraine – has escalated its preparation, conducting seminars in 2022 and 2023 to coordinate better security against such aerial attacks.
"There is a growing concern globally over the criminal misuse of emerging technologies as they become ubiquitous," the UN said after its most recent counterterrorism meeting. "Recent evidence demonstrates that the acquisition of UAS software, hardware, and components as well as their weaponization and deployment by terrorist groups has increased over the past years across many Member States. [...]
The Office of Director of National Intelligence admitted in a 2021 report that was recently declassified that it was acutely aware of the rising danger of terrorist drones and equally frustrated by slow U.S. efforts to recognize that a technology it devised to fight terrorists might now be used to hunt Americans.
“The United States has a history of being reactionary to unforeseen or misunderstood national security threats,” the report candidly noted. “Recently, the United States was caught off guard yet again by terrorist groups’ ability to adapt their tactics on the battlefield and cause bloodshed in new and surprising ways. These groups are infringing on a battlespace long dominated by the U.S. military: the air domain."
“The recent incorporation of unmanned aerial systems (UASs), commonly referred to as 'drones,' into the tactics and techniques of terrorist operations is forcing the United States to reassess its policies and defense measures to protect its employed military forces,” it added.
You can read that report here.
The Homeland Security Department says its research and development arm is trying to create new technologies to counter terrorism from the sky but admits its efforts face an uphill race. [more]
Please see the entire article at:
https://justthenews.com/government/security/fricarnage-sky-experts-warns-new-terrorism-threat-us
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