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Advanced Surveillance Tech for Unmanned Drones Credited In Iraq

Posted by Soulskill on from the eye-in-the-sky dept.

mathoda writes "Investigative reporter Bob Woodward states that America has developed secret capabilities 'to locate, target and kill key individuals in groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni insurgency and renegade Shia militias, or so-called special groups. The operations incorporated some of the most highly classified techniques and information in the US government.' The LA Times now reports, 'As part of an escalating offensive against extremist targets in Pakistan, the United States is deploying Predator aircraft equipped with sophisticated new surveillance systems that were instrumental in crippling the insurgency in Iraq, according to US military and intelligence officials.' Part of the capabilities appear to be that the unmanned flying drones can track targets even inside of buildings." Update by J : Bruce Schneier's readers have some thoughts.

10 of 283 comments (clear)

  1. Does anyone else find it erie that we're by BitterOldGUy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    getting closer and closer to a plot in a Terminator movie?

    1. Re:Does anyone else find it erie that we're by plover · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm picturing the "hunter-seekers" from the Dune novels. They were anti-gravity hypodermic needles of death, guided by a hidden operative nearby. Ultra cool, and it's almost impossible to see them coming.

      So, maybe we have ultra quiet electric R/C planes flying around with a single-shot weapon of some sort (perhaps it's explosive.) Maybe they're carried to the site by a Predator at a high altitude, then dropped and silently glide to their targets where they detonate.

      Of course the bigger problem with the insurgency is locating them in the first place. This wouldn't help with that problem at all.

      --
      John
  2. Identifying targets within buildings? by bheer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Key bit from TFA:

    But officials said the previously unacknowledged devices have become a powerful part of the American arsenal, allowing the tracking of human targets even when they are inside buildings or otherwise hidden from Predator surveillance cameras. ... the systems have significantly speeded up decisions on when to strike. The technology gives remote pilots a means beyond images from the Predator's lens of confirming a target's identity and precise location.

    A military official familiar with the systems said they had a profound effect, both militarily and psychologically, on the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq.

    "It is like they are living with a red dot on their head," ... "With the quietness of the Predator, you never knew when a Hellfire [missile] would come through your window."

    Hmm, using heat signatures to detect persons within buildings is old hat. Any slashdotters care to comment on how one could, even theoretically, see within buildings and identify targets with any degree of precision?

    --
    Go somewhere random
    1. Re:Identifying targets within buildings? by bheer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Ah, this PDF pointed to by Bruce Schneier is very interesting:

      Continuous Tagging Tracking Locating

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      Go somewhere random
    2. Re:Identifying targets within buildings? by johnny+cashed · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hmm, using heat signatures to detect persons within buildings is old hat. Any slashdotters care to comment on how one could, even theoretically, see within buildings and identify targets with any degree of precision?

      My experience with thermal imagers shows that even imaging through ordinary window glass is difficult (I won't say impossible). Windows are opaque for all intensive purposes. Wood, brick, adobe, whatever are going to block the IR enough to prevent imaging anybody. You can see where heat leaks out, but you can't see thermal through glass, let alone building materials. My experience is with very old cooled sensors, so I'm not up to date, but I can't see this happening with thermal imaging.

  3. Why not use this tech to avoid bombing children? by HertzaHaeon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder if this technology will decrease or increase incidents like this:

    Harrowing video film backs Afghan villagers' claims of carnage caused by US troops

    "Villagers and the UN insist that 92 were killed, including as many as 60 children. Locals say that the US and Afghan troops who came into the village looking for a Taleban commander, with US air support, used excessive force... Local people say that US forces bombed preparations for a memorial ceremony for a tribal leader. Residential compounds were levelled by US attack helicopters, armed drones and a cannon-armed C130 Spectre gunship."

    If you can track people in buildings, you'd think you'd be able to tell if they're children.

  4. Re:Why not use this tech to avoid bombing children by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is the problem when the local population actively supports terrorism. If any of the supporters gets killed(or god forbid, children of a man hiding a terrorist in his house) we get to hear all the "The US forces are killing innocent people."

    Yes, there are some deaths that could have been avoided, but those are the minority.

    And before you guys flame me, I'm an Arab living in Israel, and I'm sick of hearing people here wail the same thing over and over again when an "innocent" person gets killed in Gaza.

  5. Re:Asymmetric warfare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well something definitely changed in Iraq.

    There really has been a severe decrease in violence and whilst it's still not exactly going to be your first pick holiday destination it's certainly been cleaned up a whole lot.

    Was it tech like this taking out key targets?

    Was it the conversion of Sunni groups to the US' cause?

    Was it the surge?

    If it is down to tech and intelligence that can take out key targets that seems like a real good way of fighting this kind of war. Effectively it would be a case of using terror to fight terror- these groups incite violence with terrorism and yet being able to pick off key members of these groups at will with good intelligence backed up by powerful surveillance tech is sure to terrorise the perpetrators as much as the kind of attacks they order can terrorise the people affected.

    I'd imagine this is why Muqtada al-Sadr fled to Iran and is yet to return, not because of the fear the US forces could eventually break into his compoud in the middle of the night after a long gun battle with his thousands of supporters and take him into custody but that a well placed hellfire could eliminate him without warning and without the need for such a gun battle.

    It's hard sometimes to imagine that taking out just a single individual can have much of an impact but I think the impact it has can be surprisingly large. When the US took out Zarqawi there was at least a major decrease in kidnappings and certainly a decrease in kidnappings that resulted in publicised beheadings.

    Perhaps we'll never know what the real reason for such a major shift in the situation in Iraq was or perhaps it was just a combination of the surge, elimination of key targets and conversion of sunni groups but either way it's working and what seemed like a completely unwinnable situation now looks winnable. The only question now is whether the various countries involved have the stomache to finish the job both in Iraq or in Afghanistan, with Harper stating Canadian troops will be out of Afghanistan in 2011 the worrying possibility is that people just don't have the stomache to finish the job and we'll unfortunately just see the two countries slip back into chaos. We can only hope a nation like Germany will grow the balls to send it's troops to the much tougher combat areas Canada has been involved in to fill the gap or that the Canadians realise turning tail and running now would be a major mistake and would be an insult to those who have lost their lives to bring us this far.

    I think many of us agree that we should probably not have gone into Iraq at least in the first place now but we did, so let's finish the job properly rather than fail Iraq and Afghanistan yet again shall we?

  6. What it is by TheModelEskimo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Enemy combatants are sprayed or otherwise marked (lots of ways to do this) with a marker known as a "perfume" or a "stain." This marker works on a very, very small scale. It contains little devices that convert microwave energy into DC power (rectennae).

    This effectively gives the military an "electrical output" somewhere on your body that they can use to read your signal. What is being output? Why, your biological signature. So the military fly over you while emitting microwaves, or otherwise light you up. Then they get a positive read on a Mr. Sadiq Abbad from Pakistan...and what's he doing with these other characters? Etc.

  7. Re:Asymmetric warfare by Dun+Malg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And of course you openly question if its illigitimate to fight a foreign military occupation and their puppet regime.

    Puppet regime? How does it differ from the post-WW2 Federal Republic of Germany? Was Konrad Adenauer the puppet?

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    If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.