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19 Geo. J. Int'l Aff. 97 (2018)
The Rising Drone Threat from Terrorists

handle is hein.journals/geojaf19 and id is 104 raw text is: The Rising Drone Threat from Terrorists Alyssa Sims ist-sized craters pockmark 23 Wall Street, the corner building intersect- ing Wall Street and Broad Street, left by shrapnel from a bomb blast almost one-hundred years ago.' On September 16, 1920, a horse-drawn cart parked across from the building that headquartered J. P. Mor- gan at the time detonated, killing thirty- eight people and injuring several hundred.2 The evolution of vehicular bombs begins with this ruthless feat of ingenuity by a ter- rorist. Though the New York police never charged anyone, historians suspect that the perpetrator was Mario Buda, an Italian im- migrant and anarchist.3 Militants have long sought parity with the artillery of state militaries, but a lack of resources and technological sophistication have posed barriers to radicals determined to inflict mass harm. However, Buda's deadly weapon fashioned out of widely available materials is an example of a practical reso- lution, which would later be replicated in other vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED), leading up to the con- temporary use of drones by non-state actors. Terrorist networks have operated drones since at least 2004, when the Lebanese mili- tant group Hezbollah flew a military-grade drone over Israeli airspace.4 However, be- cause of the lack of state support, most ter- ror groups are barred from accessing drone technology of this caliber. Despite this, re- cent innovation has created an opening for unfettered drone experimentation: hobbyist drones. Commercial-use drones, the kind avail- able from Amazon.com and the most ubiq- uitous among militant groups, are not sold with arms or explosives; however, with a little engineering, they can be modified to carry a small payload and strike targets from a dis- tance. Recognizing the potential for terror- ism, in 2015, officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the FAA, and the military held a conference in which videos depicted simulated drone attacks.5 DHS again outlined the threat to civilians in a 2017 fact sheet that highlighted the po- tential for malicious schemes by terrorists, criminal organizations (including transna- tional organizations), and lone actors with specific objectives.6 It is unclear how many, if any, civilians have been killed by hobby- ist drones so far, as terrorist use of drones has occurred outside of the United States. And though the domestic threat might be imminent, as indicated by FBI Director Christopher Wray, it has not arrived yet. But terrorists are nonetheless becoming frequent drone users, and as non-state groups acquire drones and launch attacks, terrorist drone use has proven destructive on the battlefield. In this article, I argue that while terrorist drones indeed pose a moderate threat to ci- vilians, non-state use of drones will pose the greatest challenges in combat. Professional militaries will need to invest in conventional air defenses in addition to counter-drone FALL 2018, VOLUME XIX 97 Alyssa Sims is a policy analyst in the International Security Program at New America, where she researches the US drone program and the international proliferation of drones.

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