The US military's reliance on unmanned aircraft that can watch, hunt and sometimes kill insurgents has soared to more than 500,000 hours in the air, largely in Iraq.
And new Department of Defense figures show that the Air Force more than doubled its monthly use of drones between January and October, forcing it to take pilots out of the air and shift them to remote flying duty to meet part of the demand.
The dramatic increase in the development and use of drones across the armed services reflects what will be an even more aggressive effort over the next 25 years, the new report said.
PHOTO: AP
The jump in Iraq coincided with the buildup of US forces last summer as the military swelled its ranks to quell the violence in Baghdad. But Pentagon officials said that even as troops begin to slowly come home this year, the use of Predators, Global Hawks, Shadows and Ravens is unlikely slow down.
"I think right now the demand for the capability that the unmanned system provides is only increasing," said Army Colonel Bob Quackenbush, deputy director for Army Aviation. "Even as the surge ends, I suspect the deployment of the unmanned systems will not go down, particularly for larger systems."
For some Air Force pilots, that means climbing out of the cockpit and heading to places such as Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, where they can remotely fly the Predators, one of the larger and more sophisticated unmanned aircraft.
About 120 Air Force pilots were recently transferred to staff the drones to keep pace with demands, the Air Force said.
Some National Guard members were also called up to staff the flights. And more will be doing that in the coming months, as the Air Force adds bases where pilots can remotely fly the aircraft. Locations include North Dakota, Texas, Arizona and California and some are already operating.
One key reason for the increase is that US forces in Iraq grew from 15 combat brigades to 20 over the spring and early summer, boosting troop totals from roughly 135,000 to more than 165,000. Slowly over the next six months, five brigades are being pulled out of Iraq that will not be replaced, as part of a drawdown announced by the administration, which began last month.
The increased military operations all across Iraq last summer triggered greater use of the drones and an escalating call for more of the systems -- from the Pentagon's key hunter-killer, the Predator, to the surveillance Global Hawks and the smaller, cheaper Ravens.
In one recent example of what they can do, a Predator caught sight of three militants firing mortars at US forces in November in Balad, Iraq. The drone fired an air-to-ground missile, killing the three.
Air Force officials said that Predator flights increased last year, from about 2,000 hours in January to more than 4,300 hours in October. They are expected to continue to escalate when hours are calculated for November and last month.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS