ISIS drones take the IED to Western troops

IEDs, or Improvised Explosive Devices, have been responsible for three out of five combat deaths in Iraq since the start of the Iraq war in 2003.  These bombs come in a variety of forms, often concealed near or beneath driving surfaces to be detonated remotely when poised to do the most possible damage, but recent reports from the ongoing battle between ISIS and coalition forces in Iraq indicate that ISIS may have found an even deadlier use for their explosives: arming drones.

On October 2^nd of this year, an ISIS controlled drone armed with an improvised explosive killed two Peshmerga soldiers and injured two French paratroopers in Irbil, Iraq.  This development confirmed reports made by Conflict Armament Research that one of their investigators uncovered an ISIS “drone workshop” in Ramadi.  The investigator, whose name was not disclosed, reported that he found plywood fuselages and Styrofoam wings inside the building, as well as a disassembled shoulder launched surface-to-air missile.  For Conflict Armament Research investigators, the presence of these components together strongly implied that ISIS was trying to “arm their drones with something that would be light enough to be carried by a drone, but also that would have the right kind of explosives for potency,”