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Ed Webb

Chinese drones: Cheap, lethal and flying in the Middle East | Middle East Eye - 0 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...china-drones-1492124367

MENA China mlitary weapons arms drones KSA Saudi UAE Egypt Iraq Yemen

shared by Ed Webb on 09 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • China’s new hit product: the CH-4 Caihong, or "Rainbow", drone.
  • The Middle East is no stranger to drones flown by the US, which have killed thousands of people over the last decade.But more nations are entering the game thanks to a new player in the market: Chinese manufacturers offering cheap hardware with a no-questions-asked sales policy.China has been aggressively marketing the CH-4, which bears a striking resemblance to the US MQ-9 Reaper and has similar capabilities.
  • Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt are now believed to operate variants of Chinese armed drones
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  • China has not signed the international Arms Trade Treaty, or ATT, meaning it has fewer restrictions on the sale of drone technology
  • “Countries with less-than-ideal human rights records tend to use their weapons in less-than-ideal human rights manners, whether it’s a drone or a water cannon."
  • Saudi Arabia and the UAE are believed to have used the drones in their war in Yemen. While there are not verified reports of drone attacks, evidence of their use includes satellite photographs, as well as images of a drone resembling a CH-4 shot down by Houthi fighters.Saudi Arabia has been condemned by a host of bodies including the Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the European Parliament for apparent indiscriminate attacks on civilians in Yemen.
  • while drones offer safety for operators, leaked reports from the US drone programme suggest that up to 90 percent of those killed in drone strikes may be unintended targets, or "collateral damage". 
Ed Webb

Egypt Continues Sinai Security Effort Amid Reports of Israeli Help - 0 views

www.voanews.com/...4248097.html

Egypt Israel Sinai military diplomacy ISIS Islamists militants

shared by Ed Webb on 12 Feb 18 - Cached
  • The military campaign is part of what the Egyptian government calls "Comprehensive Operation Sinai 2018.” The mission, announced Friday, is intended to target “terrorist and criminal elements and organizations” across Egypt.
  • Egypt is quietly carrying out the operation with cooperation from Israel.
  • Israeli airstrikes in the Sinai are targeted individuals or small groups of militants as opposed to infrastructure, according to media reports.
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  • “the level of trust between the nations has reached the point where Israel is providing various military, technological and operational intelligence to Egypt and is operating attack UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] in Sinai with Cairo’s approval.”
  • Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi reinstated an ambassador in Tel Aviv in 2016, reversing Morsi's withdrawal of the envoy to protest a 2012 Israeli assault on Gaza. The same year Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry visited Israel, making a trip to the home of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was the first time an Egyptian foreign minister had visited Israel in two decades.
Ed Webb

The U.S. Army Is Using the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict to Study Drone Warfare - 1 views

foreignpolicy.com/...ntagon-nagorno-karabakh-drones

USA US Turkey Azerbaijan Armenia military drones UAVs Israel

shared by Ed Webb on 30 May 21 - Cached
  • When Azerbaijan took over the skies in its fight with Armenia over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh last fall, winning the air war with commercial Turkish and kamikaze drones, one thing started to become clear to U.S. Army strategists: It’s becoming easier to hunt and kill troops than ever before—and to do so on the cheap. With inexpensive, combat-ready drones proliferating on battlefields all over the world, in the not-too-distant future unsuspecting soldiers might get killed just by getting out of their positions for a moment to go to the bathroom.
  • poorer nations can buy themselves a respectable air force mostly off the shelf
  • Azerbaijan deployed Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones and loitering munitions, many of them Israeli-made, to shrink the battlefield and chip away at Armenia’s armored forces as well as the logistical tail that hadn’t even reached the front lines.
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  • Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev even touted a laundry list of Armenian equipment purportedly destroyed or captured, including nearly 250 tanks, 50 infantry fighting vehicles, and four Russian-made S-300 missile defense systems, as well as 198 trucks and 17 self-propelled artillery units. In mid-October, Aliyev credited Turkish drones with helping his military to destroy more than $1 billion worth of Armenian equipment.
  • the tremendous amount of disinformation flying around on open-source networks made it difficult to figure out everything that happened in real time.
  • Automation is likely to move beyond the skies, too. Shaw, an infantry officer by training, sees weaker militaries following the U.S. lead by deploying unmanned ground and sea vehicles
  • unmanned aerial vehicles are becoming more lethal
  • Even communication over FM radio, which was standard operating procedure for U.S. troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past two decades, will need to be rethought as countries like Russia are getting much more skilled at locating—and striking—units that are careless about staying unmasked on the electromagnetic spectrum
  • The Army, which has long enjoyed a firepower advantage in static positions, will have to think about reinventing the wheel to be a constantly mobile force, avoiding detection and incoming fire. “If survivability moves are constant, that increases your rate of consumption for food, water, fuel. People have to sleep,” Shaw said. “We’re going to have to have leaders who are comfortable operating under the uncomfortable.”
Ed Webb

US officials meet Libya's Haftar to end Tripoli offensive | News | Al Jazeera - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...offensive-191126063810132.html

Libya US USA UAE Egypt Turkey France Italy Russia KSA Saudi war diplomacy

shared by Ed Webb on 27 Nov 19 - Cached
  • Senior US officials have met with Libyan renegade general Khalifa Haftar to discuss steps towards ending his offensive on Tripoli, and accused Russia of exploiting the conflict, the US state department has announced.
  • Haftar's eastern-based, self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) in April launched an offensive to seize Tripoli, the seat of the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA). More than 1,000 people have been killed since the start of the operation.
  • "It seems that the US is getting involved in ending the current conflict but the question now is whether or not these mediations are going to address the countries involved in fuelling the conflict in Libya, like Russia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt."
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  • Russian mercenaries have reportedly been fighting on the side of LNA.
  • Western powers have sent mixed signals with France and Italy welcoming Haftar for visits and Trump, after a phone call, hailing his role in "fighting terrorism and securing Libya's oil resources". But the United States later distanced itself from Haftar and joined calls for a ceasefire. Haftar is backed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE. The LNA denies it has foreign backing.
  • an LNA official on Monday said a US drone brought down last week over the Libyan capital was shot down by accident. A senior official in the LNA said the UAV was mistaken for a Turkish drone deployed by the Tripoli-based government.
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