Drones are an increasing threat to US forces in Iraq. There have been at least four drone attacks, most recently on Sunday, when drones, likely operated by Iranian-backed militias, attacked Ain al-Asad Airbase. They were shot down.
On May 8, another drone incident took place, and in April, a drone attacked a secret CIA hangar at Erbil International Airport in the Kurdish Region of Iraq. There was also a drone attack on May 11.
At a briefing on Monday with Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of US Central Command, he discussed the increasing drone threat.
“We are seeing pressure from Iranian-affiliated militant groups that want to push us out of Iraq, and the latest manifestation of that has been the use of small unmanned aerial systems, or drones,” McKenzie said.
The top US general in the Middle East has frequently warned about drone threats, including those by terrorists using small quadcopters. ISIS used drones.
The Iranian drone threat is more sophisticated. It includes kamikaze drones that are as large as a person, carry a warhead and use precise coordinates to carry out attacks. Because they have a preplanned route, they are hard to jam and can be hard to shoot down.
In an attack on Erbil, the drone was said to have used a civilian flight path to avoid detection or interception, according to reports.
“Some of them are very small; some are a little bit larger; all can be very lethal,” McKenzie said. “And they are resorting to this technique because they have been unable to force the government of Iraq to require that we leave. So political pressure has not worked for them; now they’re turning to a kinetic approach. And that is very concerning to me. As always, we have a variety of measures there to defend ourselves.”
He also discussed the drone threat to Saudi Arabia by the Iranian-backed Houthis. Clearly, drones are increasingly being used as a strategy and tactic by Iran across the region. They traffic the drones or the technology to build them to proxies, such as the Houthis in Yemen, pro-Iran militias in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
During the recent Gaza conflict, the Iron Dome air-defense system downed drones for the first time.
The threat in Iraq is increasing, and McKenzie has hinted at better air defense or “kinetic” approaches to stop the drones. The C-RAM air-defense system was used to shoot them down at Asad Airbase, according to reports.