The Drone Wars in Iraq and Syria

by Ian Bach   3-21-15
The Wars in Iraq and Syria have been the first Wars that the enemy is also using drones in. So far it seems like everyone has drones. Jabhat al-Nusra has used them in Syria, the FSA has them in Aleppo and Damascus, ISIS has used them in Syria and Iraq, Iraqi Shia militias have Iranian ones, Iranians have theirs, and the U.S. of course has them. It seems like the only people without drones are the Kurds. 

The western media and the blogger community has fell in love with the Kurds and their struggle. Yet the governments of the West have not properly backed them. The governments in the Middle East are not about to arm the Kurds for various reasons most of which is their own fears. 

The U.S. gives weapons and ammo directly to the Iraqi Gov and will not give them directly to the Kurds. Meanwhile Iraq Gov is dragging their feet in giving those arms and ammo to the Kurds. The Germans, Danish and Italians have supplied limited amounts of light and medium weapons and ammo, and they are also offering training to the Kurdish forces, but it is not nearly enough when you consider the amount of work the Kurds have done in the fight against the #Daeshbags of the so called (rolls eyes) Islamic State. - Ian Bach

Here is some excerpts of a few News Articles regarding Drones:
From "War is Boring"

A Bunch of Iranian Drones Have Crashed in Iraq

"Shortly after Mosul fell to Islamic State forces in June 2014, Iran began flying Ababil-3 UAVs out of Baghdad’s Al Rasheed air base in order to track the jihadists, according to The New York Times."
Iran’s Drones Are Back in Iraq
"In recent years Iran’s drones have buzzed into action over Israel, Syria and Lebanon. And now Iranian drones are returning to the scene of their birth—the skies of Iraq, where Tehran’s flying robots saw their combat debut during the 198os Iran-Iraq war."
"Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps is deploying the Mohajer-4 surveillance drone and its cousins—descendants of the country’s first Mohajer-1—in its bid to halt Islamic State jihadists in Iraq."
Iran Has a Dogfighting Drone

"Hatami told the assembled press that the air-defense Mohajer can shoot down enemy fighter jets, helicopters and even cruise missiles. But a closer look at the air-to-air drone reveals that it’s not quite the engineering marvel the good general would have you believe."

The Guardian - US drone shot down by Syrian Gov over Latakia a beach resort city relatively untouched by the War.

"Syria’s state news agency, SANA, has published a video purportedly showing the wreckage of a “hostile” surveillance plane and said it was shot down in the same area where the Pentagon confirmed contact was lost with a Predator drone."

"SANA said the Syrian military had downed the plane in northern Latakia and the authorities were conducting an investigation to determine who it belonged to."

"In a statement on Tuesday, the Pentagon said it had lost contact with an unarmed Predator drone but could not confirm whether it was shot down."

US Says It Struck Islamic State Drone in Iraq

"Associated Press | Mar 19, 2015

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military says it bombed an Islamic State drone aircraft in Iraq that was being used for battlefield surveillance."

"A spokesman for the U.S. military command in charge of the conflict against the Islamic State said Wednesday that the drone was a small, unarmed hand-held type of the sort that can be purchased commercially."

"The spokesman, Maj. Kim Michelsen, said that Islamic State fighters had been flying the drone for a short time before placing it in a vehicle. A U.S. airstrike hit the vehicle near the city of Fallujah in western Iraq. He said the drone was targeted because it was being used for surveillance along IS front lines."

It seems like Unmanned Vehicles UAV's / Drones are here to stay and it is not just the USA using them anymore the cat is out of the bag and what is next is anyones guess - I.B.

Syria demands action against terrorist acts’ perpetrators and backers

Damascus, SANA – Syria demanded on Tuesday action to bring the perpetrators of the terrorist acts in the
country and their regional and international backers to account.

A particular reference was made by the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry in two identical letters addressed to the UN top officials on to the intense terrorist rocket attacks that targeted the city of Damascus last Sunday.

A hail of rocket and mortar shells fired by terrorist organizations poured down on Damascus two days ago. The shells targeted residential neighborhoods indiscriminately, leaving a trail of casualties and destruction in their wake.

The two letters, addressed to Chairman of the Security Council and the UN Secretary General, cited the firing of over 40 107 mm rocket shells, Katyusha rockets and mortar rounds on neighborhoods in the capital that are home to houses, hospitals, schools and headquarters of embassies and international organizations.

The Foreign Ministry demanded condemnation of these terrorist acts and taking measures to hold to account the perpetrators and all the regional and international forces and countries standing behind them, citing particularly Saudi Arabia, Turkey, France and Qatar.

It referred that the so-called “Islam Army” terrorist group and its leader Zahran Alloush took credit of the rocket attacks, a threat of which was made clearly evident on social media websites several hours before the firing started.

The Foreign Ministry made it clear that the attacks came as a response to the increasing pace of local reconciliations achieved in the country, the army-secured departure of thousands of civilians trapped in terrorists-controlled areas in Eastern Ghouta and most recently the beginning of the preparatory talks on the crisis in the Russian capital.

It is more than evident, the Ministry said, that the armed terrorist groups are bent on trying to foil any attempt at reaching a peaceful solution to the crisis in Syria.

The success of such peaceful and political efforts, it added, threatens the plots of known regional and international forces which are being carried out on the ground by these Wahhabi-doctrinated terrorist groups.

The Ministry’s letters blamed countries inside and outside the region for the continuation of terrorist attacks which Syrian provinces have been subjected to for four years now.

Chief among those countries, it stressed, are Saudi Arabia and France, which “have supplied the terrorists with material and logistic support as well as political and media cover.”

While dismissing these terrorist acts as “cowardly”, the Foreign Ministry affirmed that they will affect neither the resilience of the Syrian people nor their “heroic defending of their independence, sovereignty, freedom and dignity.”

It called upon the countries which still describe these terrorist groups as “modern opposition” to refrain from that and acknowledge the real designation of those groups as “terrorist organizations”, including the so-called “Islam Army”.

The Ministry cited in this context a recent report by the UN Secretary General on the implementation of resolutions 2139, 2165 and 2191 in which the UN Chief referred to the agreement of the notorious Jabhat al-Nusra and the other terrorist groups of “Ahrar al-Sham” and “Islam Army” to form unified leadership council, operations room and Sharia court in al-Qalamoun area.

The Ministry voiced Syria’s demand that these terrorist groups be included in the Security Council’s lists of terrorist organizations given their growing threat that has spread to the entire world.

Haifa Said