The Islamic State (ISIS) stole 18 attack drones from a Russian military base in the Southern Federal State of Russia. The base, 700 miles from Syria, had been used to launch airstrikes against ISIS and Syrian rebels.
An ISIS hacker tricked Russian security computers into unlocking a secured emergency underground gate and tunnel where six to seven ISIS soldiers infiltrated the base at night. They made their way into the drone hanger and manually uploaded new code into the attack drones via a standard USB port. They then left the base before dawn without being noticed by security.
At 10 am local time, the drones were stocked with new weapons and fueled. At 11 am the drones set out for a practice run with new flight controllers taking them out for their final pilot examination. Once the drones were booted up, the new code overwrote the standard Russian program. Unknown to the flight commander, once the drones hit the sky they immediately stopped responding to Russian commands. At first, they thought the new flight controllers were incompetent, but after an hour, it became clear something was terribly wrong.
After several more hours of trying to lay blame, Russia sent up a dozen fighter jets to track and destroy the rogue drones. The ISIS hacker who had control of the drones had immediately turned off its location beacons and flew low to the ground to avoid radar. After a day of searching, the Russians gave up. Patrols are still searching for the ISIS soldiers who managed to infiltrate the military base.
Intelligence suggests the drones flew to an unknown area in Syria or Iraq. The freshly refueled drones would have had up to 1250 miles to fly on a single tank. The US Army had already destroyed two potential ISIS runways several weeks ago, but a new one could have easily been constructed in the vast empty desert.
It is unknown if ISIS will have the ability to maintain these complicated flying death machines but if they were able to hack, steal, and fly them back to a secret base, they obviously have some knowledge on the drones.
The attack drones are each armed with eight R-46 missiles and have level 3 stealth technology. The Russians had been developing these drones for eight years. They do consume a special type of fuel so use will be limited for ISIS unless they can get their hands on more.
Russian intelligence reviewed night surveillance and found where the ISIS members were able to breach to the high-security compound. They also found the computer files used to trick the Russian system to allow for the drones to be taken over by a lone ISIS hacker.
Russian military officials have yet to comment on the infiltration of the ISIS soldiers and theft of the 18 attack drones, but all high-level commanders of the base have been sent back to Moscow for reprimand and questioning.
New guidelines over the storage and security of drones have already come from the Kremlin, but they deny the rogue drones have anything to do with the orders.
There might be a self-destruct mechanism on the drones, but intelligence says the Russians were not able to get that function to work properly. The new drones were also supposed to be unhackable.
The American military community is outraged by ISIS getting 18 attack drones in their hands.
Former US Military Commander Joe Thompson told the New York Times, “This is like a Tom Clancy novel or James Bond movie come to life.
“We are used to fighting enemies that use our own weapons like assault rifles, rocket launchers, even tanks, but never a drone. And the Russians lost eighteen of them? It makes you wonder what they lost after the cold war.
“The problem is even if they crashed and were destroyed before ISIS could use them, the idea that they had a bunch of drones is great propaganda. Drones are greatly feared in the Middle East, and they symbolize great power.”
Over the past several wars, the United States has become accustomed to fighting against their own weapons and older Soviet Union style weapons. In Afghanistan, US soldiers fought against AK-47s left over from when the Russian fought their several decades earlier. In Iraq, we faced American made weapons we had given Saddam Hussein to fight against Iran in the 1980s. Now in Syria and Iraq, we are fighting against ISIS troops armed with weapons from all the previous wars and now drones.
ISIS called this theft a great victory, but US commanders say they have a plan to take down the Russian drones within the next few days.
