South Asia Terrorism Portal

Air-Power: Uncertain Impact
Joy Mitra
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

On September 30, 2018, at least 21 Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) terrorists were killed in a United States (US) drone strike in the Sikanar area of Wazir Tang in the Khogyani District of Nangarhar Province.

On September 29, 2018, at least 15 Taliban militants, including three ‘commanders’ identified as Mawlawi Abdul Hai, Mullah Joja, and Mullah Basir; were killed and another seven injured in air-strikes conducted by Security Forces, (SFs) in the Qaisar District of Faryab Province.

On September 27, 2018, at least eight ISKP terrorists were killed in a drone attack conducted by US Forces in the Karangal area of Pech Dara District in the Kunar Province.

According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least 4,197 militants have been killed and another 903 have been injured in 462 incidents of aerial operations (including 66 drone attacks) in 2018, thus far (data till October 4, 2018).

According to data provided by the US Air Forces Central Command (US AFCENT), 412 sorties out of a total of 3,649 sorties were used by US and Coalition Force to release at least one weapon (data till June 30, 2018). In 2017, out of 4,603 sorties at least 1,248 were used to release at least one weapon.  In 2016, out of the 5,162 sorties at least 615 were involved in release of at least one weapon.

Number of Weapons Released (Operation Resolute support)

The data clearly suggests that the use of airpower is of growing importance. US Air Force Major General James Hecker, speaking to reporters in a video teleconference from Kabul on February 7, 2018, stated that, though air power alone was unlikely to accomplish the task of defeating the militants, “But it is another pressure point that we can put on them.” Further, on June 27, 2018, Air Force Brigadier Gen. Lance R. Bunch, also the Vice Commander of the 9^th Air and Space Expeditionary Task Force Afghanistan observed, “The entire purpose behind our air campaign is to pressure the Taliban into reconciliation and help them realize that peace talks are their best option”.

According to US Forces, the US Air Force conducts 25 air-strikes on an average per week at present, compared to 40 air-strikes conducted by the Afghan Air Forces (AAF). Information gleaned from various media sources about AAF reveal that it currently comprises around 8,000 personnel and 129 aircraft in total, primarily deploys A-29 Super Tucano and MD530 F Cayuse Warrior light attack helicopters. These platforms mostly use unguided munitions, in contrast to the US Air Force which principally deploys precision guided munitions. Although AAF did drop its first GBU-58 laser-guided bomb on a Taliban compound to support Afghan Army Ground operations on March 22, 2018, these munitions cost much more than unguided munitions. Further, AAF lacks high accuracy sensors, techniques, etc., which lower the risk to non-combatants.

 
Air-power has been deployed principally with the objective of disallowing militants to amass in large numbers against strategically important locations.

The deterrent effect on the battlefield has, however, not been achieved. In fact, militant continue to record successes in conducting large-scale assaults against SF bases, check-points, and posts, with huge cadre participation. 

On May 14, 2018, almost 2000 Taliban militants were able to amass to conduct a large scale multi-pronged assault in the Farah Province, close to the Iranian border, overrunning many check-points and even threatening the provincial center. The fact that militants still retain the initiative in the choice of target and can deploy in such large numbers calls into question the deterrent value of air power being deployed.

Aerial operations between January to June 2018, according to United Nations Assistance Mission’s (UNAMA) 2018 Mid Year report, have inflicted 353 civilian casualties – 149 killed and 204 injuries. UNAMA attributed 52 per cent of these casualties to the Afghan Air Force (AAF) and 45 per cent to International Military Forces, while three per cent remain unattributed. Another 263 civilians have been killed during the July-September 2018 period, according to partial data compiled by SATP.

In 2017, 631 civilian casualties (336 killed and 295 injured) were a direct consequence of aerial operations. In 2016, 590 civilian casualties (340 killed and 250 injured) resulted from aerial operations; preceded by  296 (147 killed and 149 injured) in 2015; 162 (58 killed and 104 injured) in 2014; 186 (64 killed and 122 injured) in 2013; 202 (77 killed and 125 injured) in 2012; 415 (153 killed and 262 injured) in 2011; 306 (135 killed and 171 injured) in 2010; and 622 (234 killed and 388 injured) in 2009.

Casualties caused due to aerial operations raise significant concern. Instances where UNAMA has contradicted the official Government version of such air-strikes also erodes confidence in the administration and SFs and go against the goal of political reconciliation. A UNAMA investigation report, released on April 2, 2018, focused on an air-strike conducted by AAF in the Dasht-e-Archi District in Kunduz Province in which there were at least 107 civilian casualties (36 killed and 71 injured). This included 81 children (30 killed and 51 injured). The Afghanistan Ministry of Defence (MoD) had earlier claimed that 18 Taliban militants, including a member of the ‘Quetta Council’, were killed in the air-strike, and acknowledged only nine civilians fatalities and 55 injured. MoD Afghanistan blamed the civilian casualties on Taliban militants, accusing them of using civilians as human shields.

Escalation in deployment of air-assets has little correlation to the strategic goals of deterrence,  or creating a sense of security for the common people, thereby helping in inching towards the overall process of political reconciliation. According to the UNAMA Mid Year Report released on July 15, 2018, the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan hit a record high in the first half of 2018, with 1,692 civilian fatalities – the highest recorded in the same time period in any year over the last decade since the agency began documenting civilian casualties in 2009. There were 1,672 civilian deaths in 2017, 1644 in 2016 and 1615 in 2015 in the same time period.

The effectiveness of air-power depends completely on the quality of intelligence on the ground, and with the Taliban extending its disruptive capacities across Afghanistan, intelligence flows are far from adequate for an effective air campaign. This results in the mismatch between threat and response equations, and also reflects on the strategy-tactics dilemma that United States has been grappling with ever since the commencement of the war in 2001.

Drone Policy: Too Little, Too Late  
Guest Writer: Dominic Karunesudas
Founder and director at Technitics Consulting, a Delhi-based technology and management consultancy

Drones have emerged as a potentially devastating instrument of war–both regular and irregular–with states and terrorist formations exploring their potential to inflict destruction on their adversaries. Anti-state and terrorist forces have already deployed drones in operations that had, or could have had, major geo-political impact.

On August 5 this year, a failed assassination bid on Venezuelan President during a ceremonial parade, used two drones, each packed with a kilogram of C-4 plastic explosives. The drones were pushed off course electronically, though one crashed into an apartment building a couple of blocks away from the intended target. Several persons were injured, though there were no fatalities.

On July 27, Houthi rebels engineered a failed attack at the Abu Dhabi airport with an explosive loaded drone. There were no casualties reported, and though United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities denied the attack, several flights were delayed. The Houthis have also used drones to ram Saudi air defences in Yemen.

The Islamic State (IS, previously the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham, aka Daesh) had used explosive-rigged drones as far back as October 2016. Daesh subsequently released a propaganda video with nearly a dozen examples of drone attacks it had engineered. As the group’s capacities diminished, these attacks faded away in 2017.

Ominiously, in April 2015, a drone with a small radioactive payload, was recovered from the roof of the office of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan.

Closer home, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the head of the Lashkar-e-Taiba – Jamaat-ud-Dawa terrorist complex, and the principal architect of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, has openly threatened India with a drone-mounted nuclear attack. While there has, yet, been no recorded instance of the use of a drone to deliver a terrorist payload in India, several incidents have underlined the vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure to such an attack. On July 8, 2015, reports indicated that two employees of a Mumbai-based real estate search portal were detained by the police after they flew a drone near the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Chembur, Mumbai, without prior police permission.

On January 28, 2017, a Go Air pilot spotted a drone while he was coming in to land at the Mumbai airport. While the aircraft was at no time in any danger, the potential for an intentional impact is very real. A series of near collisions between drones and commercial aircraft have been reported by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) worldwide.

Unsurprisingly, India’s first reaction was a blanket ban. In October 2014, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued a ban on the use of drones for commercial purposes. Nevertheless, toy and recreational drones continued to be used, till the Bhaba Atomic Research Centre episode in Mumbai. The Maharashtra Government then dashed off letters to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) demanding flight controls and regulations for drones and paragliders in order to ensure that no misuse occurred. The letter also included draft rules for approval. Several such memos and letters were received by UMHA from across different State and central agencies thereafter. As pressure built, the October 2014 ban was implemented with increasing strictness by local authorities, and recreational drones went off the market.

On August 27, 2018, however, DGCA announced a new policy that legalizes and seeks to regulate civil Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) or Remotely Piloted Aircraft System or, in common parlance, drones. The Policy comes into play on December 1, 2018, according to the DGCA’s draft Drone Policy, which outlines the drone flying regulations.

In itself, the policy is a welcome step, reiterating the position that India embraces new age technologies for civilian and commercial use of drones with open arms. The framework put forward by DGCA will encourage commercial usage of drones in various sectors including e-commerce, delivery, agriculture, engineering, industrial and infrastructure monitoring, photography, emergency services and more.

DGCA has defined remotely piloted aircraft as an unmanned aircraft piloted from a remote pilot station: “The remotely piloted aircraft, its associated remote pilot station(s), command and control links and any other components forms a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS).” Also, as per the civil aviation requirements – issued under the provisions of Rule 15A and Rule 133A of the Aircraft Rules, 1937 – these remotely piloted aircrafts will need a Unique Identification Number (UIN), Unmanned Aircraft Operator Permit (UAOP) and need to adhere to various other operational requirements.

The DGCA has segregated drones into five different categories:-

According to the new draft policy, UAVs cannot be flown within five kilometers of the perimeters of airports in metros such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad; and within three kilometres from the perimeter of any other airport. Drones cannot fly within “permanent or temporary Prohibited, Restricted and Danger Areas” and within 25 kilometres from international borders, including the Line of Control (LoC), Line of Actual Control (LAC) and Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL). UAVs cannot fly beyond 500 metres into the sea from the coast line; within three kilometres from the perimeter of military installations; within a 5 kilometre radius of Vijay Chowk in Delhi; within two kilometers from the perimeter of strategic locations/ vital installations notified by Union Ministry of Home Affairs; and within three kilometers from the radius of State Secretariat Complexes. Users are not allowed to operate from any mobile platform such as moving vehicle, ship or aircraft. Eco-sensitive zones around National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries are off-limits without prior permission. In a probable global first, India’s drone policy has introduced a ‘No Permission-No Takeoff’ (NPNT) clause, which means that drone hardware has to be configured in such a way that, unless regulatory permission is given, the drone cannot take off. The policy is currently restricted to daytime flying, and to a height of up to 400 ft. These regulations, with some variation, are broadly in line with international trends

The new policy certainly comes as a boon for the aerial photography sector for commercial and engineering purposes, which has thrived globally, and which was pushing up demand for high-powered drones. With the ban in place, this had given rise to a grey market openly selling these gadgets at a premium. Crucially, growing entrepreneurial and technology development opportunities in the drone sector finally goaded the Ministry of Civil Aviation to come out with its new policy.

However, the policy does open up a Pandora box of questions relating to individual privacy and trespassing; air traffic, terrorist threat management, and legal liability – are areas that have clearly not been addressed adequately. Questions related to jurisdiction, capacity and training of law enforcement agencies have not been addressed.  G. Satheesh Reddy, Secretary, Department of Defence (R&D) and Chairman, DRDO, thus emphasized that drones, both weaponized and surveillance models, along with cybercrime, cyber terrorism, chemical and biological warfare, would be the principal sources of security challenges in the foreseeable future.  

Crucially, it is response capabilities, not regulations that are critical to dealing with the UAV challenge. It is significant that a 15 mile radius around the White House in Washington is off limits for drones. Yet, in 2015, a hobbyist lost control of a drone that crashed on the southeast side of the 18 acre high-security zone around White House grounds at about 3.00 am, triggering a Secret Service lockdown. The drone – a DJI Phantom – caused no damage, but it flew in undetected.

While the overwhelming proportion of drone users are likely operate within the terms of the policy, criminals and terrorists will obviously ignore these. Unless the capacities for interception and neutralization of errant drones are established for comprehensive coverage across the country, the potential for damage – including catastrophic damage – will persist. One nightmare scenario universally feared by law enforcement and security services is the use of a small drone to deliver chemical or biological agents in an attack.

The commercial and personal use of drones will likely be ubiquitous in society in the near future. Drones have already been used to deliver pizzas and packages. If by, say, 2020, companies are regularly using drones to make home deliveries, this could make for a highly congested airspace and potentially make it easier for terrorists to hide weaponised drones among the larger cluster of UAV traffic. Terrorists are highly adaptive and innovative and will continue to find new ways to spread fear and chaos. It is imperative that counterterrorism specialists begin planning a robust response to the threat, not only in terms of detection and counter-measure technology, but also the training necessary to defend against attacks by weaponised drones.

India’s drone policy and, for that matter, similar policies globally, cannot suffice. Laws and law makers always lag behind developments in applied technologies. This does not, however, imply that bans are any kind of answer, as they would result in an entire sector of cutting edge technology, research and development falling into neglect, at unacceptable cost in terms of the country’s future.

The Scientific American magazine rightly points out that drones could be equipped with kill switches and hidden tracking software that would enable them to be disabled or traced if they go missing. These kill switches and tracing devices will have to be part of any comprehensive system of air space management, and must be mandatory for all importers, manufacturers, online and retail sellers, as well as users. An appropriate combination of domestic regulation and international nonproliferation efforts could help reduce, although not eliminate, the possibility that drones will fall into the wrong hands. Sensitive government buildings and areas can also be equipped with systems to detect and, if appropriate, electromagnetically or kinetically engage low-flying incoming drones. Taking the right steps now can minimize that chance of averting future catastrophes. Rapid adaptations in policy and capacity development are, consequently, the only option.

  

AFGHANISTAN

United States and Russia's tensions on Ukraine will have "negative repercussions" for Afghanistan: Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai said on October 2 that the United States (US) and Russia's tensions on Ukraine are moving toward Afghanistan and will have "negative repercussions" for the country. "The tensions are slowly moving from Ukraine toward Afghanistan. It will be a bad situation for Afghanistan when the tensions officially begin in Afghanistan," said Karzai. "Our goal should be to once again strengthen the consensus that Afghanistan's stability should be important for Russia even now," he added. Tolonews, October 4, 2018.

450-500 persons arrested in one week for trying to sabotage polls in Jammu and Kashmir, says DGP Dilbag Singh: Director General of Police (DGP), Dilbag Singh said on October 5 that during past one week, Jammu and Kashmir Police have arrested 450-500 over ground supporters of the militants, who were issuing threats and indulging in conspiracies to sabotage ongoing election process for Municipal and Panchayat elections. DGP said the present situation in Kashmir is not the new one as they have been witnessing such situation for past 30 years now. However, he said, Police have made adequate arrangements for smooth conduct of the local polls. Daily Excelsior, October 6, 2018.

109 persons killed in Pakistan firing along the border in Jammu and Kashmir since 2016, says RTI: At least 109 persons, including 56 Security Forces (SFs) personnel, were killed in 2,855 incidents of cross-border firing and ceasefire violations by Pakistani forces along the border in Jammu and Kashmir between January 2016 and July 2018, an RTI (Right to Information) response has revealed. The information provided by the Kashmir desk of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) to Jammu-based RTI activist Raman Sharma showed a steep increase in ceasefire violations by Pakistani forces this year, compared to 2016 and 2017 along the international border (IB) and Line of Control (LoC). Hindustan Times, October 2, 2018.

 
PAKISTAN

US urges Pakistan to ensure Taliban cut link with Afghan cadres: The United States (US) Army has spelled out two things it wants Pakistan to do: de-link the Pakistan-based Taliban leaders from their cadres in Afghanistan and force them to participate in peace talks. General Joseph L. Votel, commander, US Central Command (Centcom), explained the two points while commenting on Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi's recent visit to Washington at a Pentagon news briefing this weekend. Dawn, October 8, 2018.

 
SRI LANKA

President sets deadline to release all military occupied land in North and East by December 31: President Maithripala Sirisena on October 3 said the occupied lands in the North and East should inevitably be returned to the rightful owners and instructed the relevant authorities to sort out the problems and complete the process to release the lands before December 31. The President instructed the officials when the Presidential Task Force on Development of the Northern and Eastern Provinces met for the third time at the Parliamentary Complex. The President gave further instructions to prepare a proper timeframe to launch the relevant program and present the progress of the program at the next Presidential Task Force meeting next month. ColomboPage , October 5, 2018.