Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The Taliban's Low-Tech Defense Against U.S. Drones

The MQ-9 Reaper taxies into Creech Air Force Base, Nev., home to the newly reactivated 432nd Wing. The 432nd Wing consists of six operations squadrons and a maintenance squadron for the Air Force fleet of 60 MQ-1 Predator and six MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles. U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Larry E. Reid Jr. Source: USAF

From Time Magazine:

For Taliban commanders along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, death often arrives without warning from the skies, on missiles fired by U.S. Predator and Reaper drones that lurk out of sight, unheard by their targets on the ground. As such strikes become more commonplace, the militants are forced to seek countermeasures. And it's not as if they have a research-and-development budget to draw on. According to a top Air Force intelligence officer, some Taliban commanders on the ground have come up with a low-tech shield every bit as effective as the protective hardware on which the Pentagon has spent over $100 billion.

Read more ....

My Comment: Human shields can only hang around for so long. In the end .... if these people are marked, they will be targeted and hit at some other time.

No comments: