Islamic State militant gives insight into group’s drone industry
Islamic State drones.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) An Islamic State militant has given an insight into the group’s world of drone-making, a vital weapon the militants relied on in their wars in Iraq and Syria since 2014.
Meeting with the Saudi militant, who is locked up in a jail in the Syrian Kurdish town of Dayrik, on the Turkish Syrian borders, and managed by the Syrian Democratic Forces, Saudi newspaper Okaz quoted him saying that he joined IS in Syria late 2013 at the age of 16.
“The group obtained the drones, some Chinese- and others U.S.-made, through smuggling from Turkey”. He added that when the Turkish borders were closed, smugglers shifted to running the process through the Syrian cities of Idlib and Aleppo.
He said the group used three models of drones, and that the flying range of one of them reached 600 kilometers.
He added that he used to work at the Islamic State’s “aviation central”, an elite squad of 12, including himself, which was strictly limited to those members fearing infiltration.
The squad was under the command of an Australian national nicknamed Abu Omar, the fighter, who asked not to be named, told the newspaper. It comprised two experts from Australia, one from the U.K. and the rest from Tunisia and Pakistan.
According to the militant, the group was preparing a secret device that would bring down hostile drones through high-voltage radio frequencies, but the British national working on it was killed in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the group’s former capital.