US Increasingly Alarmed Over Attacks by Iraqi Drones: The Washington Post

U.S. military officials in Iraq have grown increasingly alarmed over attacks by drones to evade detection systems around military bases and diplomatic facilities, according to The Washington Post.

In place of rockets, armed factions against the US military presence in Iraq have turned at times to small, fixed-wing drones that fly too low to be picked up by defensive systems, military officials and diplomats say.

An official with the U.S.-led coalition described the evolving drone threat as the military mission’s biggest concern in Iraq.

In April, a drone strike targeted a CIA hangar inside the airport complex in the northern city of Erbil, according to officials familiar with the matter. The drone’s flight was tracked to within 10 miles of the site, but its path was then lost as it moved into a civilian flight path, the coalition official said.

The drone’s remains were partially recovered, and preliminary analysis suggested it was made in Iran, a coalition official said. The attack deeply concerned White House and Pentagon officials because of the covert nature of the facility and the sophistication of the strike.

Although no one was harmed in the strike, it prompted a long night of deliberations over how to respond, according to Western officials. Some U.S. officials advocated serious consideration of a military response, including the National Security Council’s coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, Brett McGurk, said two people familiar with the matter. The Biden administration ultimately decided against taking military action.

The report mentioned a similar drone attack in May on the sprawling Ain al-Asad air base raised similar concerns among coalition commanders about how they are adapting their tactics, according to officials and personnel on base.

“The damage wasn’t huge but the coalition was very upset. They told our commanders that it was a major escalation,” said one Iraqi soldier stationed at Ain al-Asad, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.

In the absence of effective defenses, the drone threat now raises the prospect of a sudden escalation. The top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, said earlier this month that efforts were underway to develop better defenses against the drones. While visiting northeastern Syria, McKenzie told reporters that military officials were looking for ways to cut command-and-control links between a drone and its operator, improve radar sensors to quickly identify the threat as it approached, and find effective ways to bring the aircraft down.

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