The government’s evasion was helped by the fact that Zhawar Kili, the site of the strike, was an infamous mujahedeen complex built with CIA and Saudi support by Jalaluddin Haqqani, the mujahedeen scion allied with the Taliban, then and now. There’s not much more anyone could add, except that there’s that one version, and there’s the other version.” Initial indications would seem to say that these are not peasant people up there farming.” Rumsfeld later chimed in, offering his signature pseudo-philosophical analysis to address the allegations that the dead were civilians. “Indicators were there that there was something untoward that we needed to make go away…. Pentagon spokesman John Stufflebeem spoke of the government’s being in the “comfort zone” of determining that the targets were “not innocent,” noting there were “no initial indications that these were innocent locals,” a curious phrase reflecting a presumption of guilt. Tommy Franks told ABC News that he expected the identities of the three to prove “interesting.” Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clark said, “We’re convinced that it was an appropriate target.” But she added, “We do not know yet exactly who it was.” Gen. But they insisted the targets were “legitimate,” although they struggled to explain why, using vague and even coy language to cover up what appeared to be uncertainty. This sighting by an unarmed drone was what had led to the first arguments among the White House and CIA about arming drones with missiles, a debate that simmered until it was snuffed out by the September 11 attacks.)Īfter the February 2002 strike, military officials quickly acknowledged that the “tall man” was not bin Laden. The drone operators were reported to have come across three people at a former mujahedeen base called Zhawar Kili-later, officials would never claim they were armed-including a “tall man” to whom the other men were “acting with reverence.” (On one previous occasion, a year before the September 11 attacks, CIA observers thought they’d seen bin Laden: a tall man with long robes near Tarnak Farm, bin Laden’s erstwhile home near Kandahar. The February 2002 attack was a pure CIA kill operation, undertaken separately from any ongoing military operation. But by February 2002 the CIA hadn’t yet used a drone for a strike outside military support. Some were used during the air war against the Taliban in late 2001. It began to fly armed drones after the September 11 attacks. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency tested a similar concept last year, based on the small-unit deployment of drone swarms.The CIA had been flying unarmed drones over Afghanistan since 2000. The drones will carry either passive or active capabilities, equipped with electro-optical or infrared imaging cameras, electronic jamming equipment, or a powerful warhead for strikes on enemy targets. The swarm will autonomously scan vast terrain, feeding video and targeting information to manned platforms. The plan is to use networked drones to sense, detect, identify, and potentially strike enemy positions before helicopters arrive on the scene. Rugen explained that previous small drone swarm trials inspired the decision to test a swarm of up to 30 drones. “Which again shows, in my mind, just the flexibility of our air-launched effects initiatives, because we can launch it from the air, we can launch it from the ground, we can launch from fixed-wing, rotary-wing, any type of ground vehicle.” The Plan “We’ll be launching them pretty much, you know, Monster Garage-style, anyway we can,” he told The War Zone. Walter Rugen, spectators in the upcoming exercise will see the “expansive use” of electronic warfare and an interactive drone swarm. The swarm will converge on a target area, sense enemy forces using infrared sensors and electronic warfare payloads, fix their positions, and feed information back to networked ground troops.Īccording to army Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team Maj. Launched from various aircraft and ground vehicles, the swarm will be the largest collection of drones that the US Army has ever tested.Īmong the drones in the swarm will be Area-I’s small Air-Launched, Tube-Integrated, Unmanned System 600 (ALTIUS 600), and Raytheon’s Coyote drone. The US Army plans to deploy a swarm of 30 drones over a desert in Utah as part of the 2022 Experimental Demonstration Gateway Exercise later this month.
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