U.S. Kills Al Qaeda Leaders by Remote Control

The Sunday Times/Fox News ^ | 11/18/2001 | Stephen Grey

[Eyes Now Opened]

There was no moonlight in Afghanistan on Wednesday night. The new moon, marking the beginning of Ramadan, had yet to appear. Invisible under the stars, an unmanned American spy plane circled inaudibly over a stretch of dark landscape, transmitting grainy images back to the United States. Its night-vision camera was focused on a pinpoint of light in the distance, a three-story hotel building, where it detected a great deal of movement. Turbaned men talked agitatedly outside among parked pick-up trucks and military vehicles. Others moved in and out of the building. The drone's controllers, thousands of miles away in a bunker on the eastern seaboard of America, knew who they were. For two days since being roused from their beds in Kabul, these ragged figures had been fleeing south, trying to stay ahead of enemy forces and anxious to avoid satellites and surveillance planes. Moving furtively in small groups across the parched plains, they had spread out on side tracks and dirt roads, avoiding the main highway. Progress was slow. They were still less than 100 miles from the capital when they reached the end of the second day of flight. Many thousands of men had fled in the Taliban withdrawal from Kabul. But amid all the chaos of the retreat, this small convoy was given special attention. It was believed by American intelligence to consist of fighters from Usama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization. Predator spy planes, capable of staying aloft for 24 hours on station, and JSTARS surveillance planes, equipped with radar that can monitor ground movements across a vast area, tracked them from the moment they left Kabul

[skateman]

Duh, I think we get it by now, learn to put mental paragraphs in your head. And learn to read prior posts, before posting.

[TomB]

Here's a REALLY scary thought: you can put together a lot of this sort of capability with stuff from Radio Shack and the local model & hobby shop.

You can buy a satellite from Radio Shack?

Do the boosters come with it or are they purchased separately (Rockets-r-us)? ;-)

Actually, what makes Predator and Dark Star so effective are the secure, real-time satellite communications. Something a radio controlled device wouldn't have.

[Poohbah]

This also suggests a new TV game show: Survior Al-Qaeda Edition. Terrorists vie to survive the various challenges, such as "evade the Special Forces sniper team," "conduct a satellite telephone conversation without the NSA listening in," and "dodge the GBU-15 strike," while voting each other out of their caves, and the winner gets $1,000,000...only to find out that the bills have been soaked in PETN (the main ingredient of det cord) and there's a mercury switch fuse :o)

[Poohbah]

Well, you don't have to buy a whole satellite these days; you just need to lease a few channels on a commercial bird.

[TomB]

That would make it rather easy to trace though. With a limited number of transponders on a limited number of birds, a terrorist organization would find it rather difficult to keep their activities secret.

The reason the military launches their own satellites is that commercial sats aren't very secure.

[the bottle let me down]

bttt

[Billthedrill]

Time to allow 13 year old boys in the military. They would pay the government to allow them to sit behind a terminal and control a Predator drone.

Lousy idea. Why let those @#$@@!! kids have all the fun? I was blowin' away Tie Fighters before blowin' away Tie Fighters was cool...

[Poohbah]

No, the reason the military launches its own satellites is that they need guaranteed bandwidth availablity--they don't want their pictures of Atef getting blown to smithereens preempted by some guy broadcasting "Ishtar."

As for making it secure, there are a number of rather good encryption algorithms out there. Ecryption on both ends of the conversation is what makes the content secure--not the bird itself.

[ohioman]

Besides Rocket Technology via Dr. Von Braun, the Germans also had the first operational jets, though it was too late to help them. It sure as hell helped us.

[TomB]

As for making it secure, there are a number of rather good encryption algorithms out there. Ecryption on both ends of the conversation is what makes the content secure--not the bird itself.

That assumes the NSA cannot break those algorithms. However, since one of the main advantages of Predator is that no one knows it is there, bouncing a signal off a commercial bird lets you know it is there in the first place, and makes locating it much easier. We wouldn't be interested in the information in the drone, only that it is operating.

And this, of course, debunks your earlier statement that "you can put together a lot of this sort of capability with stuff from Radio Shack and the local model & hobby shop."

[LarryLied]

You are right. Kids have enough fun as it is. Let's have a national lottery to see who gets to sit behind a desk and blow away terrorists with the Predator's Hell-Fire missiles. We could use the money for the NRA Eddie Eagle program.

[Travis McGee]

LOL!!!!!!!!!

[Travis McGee]

Also, UAVs don't have mommies or babies, and they don't scream when they are captured and their guts are ripped open.

[Billthedrill]

Let's have a national lottery to see who gets to sit behind a desk and blow away terrorists with the Predator's Hell-Fire missiles.

Take my wallet. Please!

[Poohbah]

I have news for you--it is actually much easier to DF a Predator using most military satellites than it would be if it were using a commercial bird.

You are presuming that if the NSA can detect a signal, it can instantly determine its context and content in realtime, even from a very dense electronic environment.

The NSA may be good, but they ain't THAT good.

[Poohbah]

they don't scream when they are captured and their guts are ripped open.

They might let out a single very dramatic scream, one might even say an explosive one :o)

[Travis McGee]

That would be a nice scream.

[Poohbah]

Follow-up info from our surveillance sensors:

"Achmed! The Great Satan's spy plane is ours! Let's open it up and view its secrets!"

(Achmed having a good deal more sense than his compadre) "Selim, Allah loves your devotion to jihad, but shouldn't we wait for Abdul to get here? The Great Satans may have laid traps for us, and Abdul is skilled at disarming such devices."

"Achmed, you are SUCH a wimp! Here..." (sounds of screwdriver and hammer)

"Selim, QUIT MESSING WITH THAT YOU CAMEL-FORNI--"

(Loud explosion, end of tape.)

[Kryptonite]

Thanks for the great article. It is a fascinating read.

If you'd like to learn more about posting with HTML code, just type "HTML" in the search box and you'll get the links to the instructions.

[csvset]

Video please!

I agree. Something along the lines of ESPN's "Plays Of The Week."

Lol, "Hey Mohammad, don't hate me because I'm a player hater."