{"id":94083,"date":"2019-10-19T16:07:28","date_gmt":"2019-10-19T23:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=94083"},"modified":"2019-10-19T16:07:28","modified_gmt":"2019-10-19T23:07:28","slug":"aerial-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/10\/19\/aerial-fears\/","title":{"rendered":"Aerial Fears"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The truth is that this technology really began to take off right at the\nbeginning of my presidency\u201d Barack Obama <\/em>(Obama speaking on drone strikes to Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic<\/em>\ninterview, 21 Dec 2016)
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\nFollowing the 4\/21 Easter Sunday attacks in Colombo, Sri Lanka\u2019s civil aviation\nauthority discovered a drone belonging to extremists, then banned drones owing\nto the security situation in the country.
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\nFrom pizza delivery in New Zealand to assassinations in the Middle East,\nautonomous machines, especially drones, are transforming our skies. They have\nalready influenced our daily lives. We will see more mind-bending, life-saving\nand life-threatening applications of the autonomous technology in the years to\ncome. Swarms of drones will work together to paint the exterior of your house\nin just a few hours, heat resistance drones will fight forest fires with\nhundreds of times the current efficiency of firefighters and other drones will\nperform search and rescue operations in the aftermath of natural disasters. In\n\u2018AI Superpowers,\u2019 Dr. Kai Fu Lee explains that China will almost certainly\ntake the lead in autonomous drone technology…Shenzhen is the home to DJI, the\nworld\u2019s premier drone maker.\u201d China will surpass the US in Research and\nDevelopment budgets for autonomous technology and there is a clear danger in\nthe competition. While drones could help humans, they could also bring\ndestruction to our lives.
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\nOn September 14 this year, two drone strikes on Aramco facilities in Saudi\nArabia destabilised global oil markets. The attack conducted by Houthi rebels\nfrom Yemen knocked out more than half of crude output from the world’s top oil\nexporter in Saudi Arabia. It cut output by 5.7 million barrels per day. While a\nSaudi-led coalition launched airstrikes on Yemen\u2019s northern Saada province,\nHouthi rebels claimed responsibility for the drone attack and sent a clear\nthreat to Saudi Arabia that their targets “will keep expanding” in\nthe future. The world\u2019s third-largest spender for military, with a staggering\n$67.6 billion defense budget, couldn\u2019t prevent the drone strike by the\nfinancially tied rebels.
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\nIn a similar drone attack on January 10, Houthi rebels assassinated Mohammad\nSaleh Tamah, the head of Yemen’s Intelligence service, during a military\nparade. The drone carried between 70 and 100 kilogrammes of explosives, which\ndetonated while flying over the main stage of the military parade.
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\nOn August 4 last year, Venezuelan head of state President Maduro was targeted\nby two drones which exploded while he was addressing a group of soldiers at a\nmilitary event in Caracas. He survived unharmed.
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\nSmall scale terrorist outfits and extremists now have clear access to\ntechnologies that magnify their ability to wreak havoc. In Sri Lanka, the 4\/21\nEaster Sunday bombers used bitcoin transfers to obtain a drone and used it for\npre-attack information gathering. There is no guarantee that the next set of\nattackers will not have access to drone technology or tools of cyber warfare.\nAccording to Collin P. Clarke from RAND corporation: This trend will likely be\nfurther exacerbated by subsequent technological developments, with the ability\nof individuals and small groups to cause wide-scale disruptions to\nsociety\u2014through cyberattacks or the use of drones.\u201d
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\nThe technology has assisted the replacement of human suicide bombers. It is\nmore accurate, can travel far and is relatively cheap to stage a high-profile\nstrike. According to Wim Zwijnenburg, a senior researcher on drones at PAX, the\ndrones used by Houthis may have cost $15,000 or less to build. The investment\nof a human suicide bomber will be replaced by autonomous machines.
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\nNations under high security threat and which have faced ISIS attacks should\nramp up coordination among intelligence agencies, civil aviation, customs, air force\nintelligence, police, and other authorities to counter future attacks.\nProposals put forward by air intelligence in Sri Lanka are still not fully\nimplemented, and the government needs to give these proposals top priority to\nensure public safety.
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\nThe 4\/21 threat has faded from security discussion with the upcoming\npresidential elections taking the centre stage. It was unfortunate to hear from\nthe president at the parliamentary oversight committee on September 11 that\nnot a single regulation has been fully implemented after the 4\/21 attack and\nit\u2019s been five months.\u201d The fake news act, the Madrasa regulation act, the\nBurqa ban, and SIM card regulations, to name a few.
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\nThe State has to be extra cautious when introducing such regulations into\nsociety. It must be prepared for indirect consequences, which may further State\nproblems. For example, the SIM card regulation proposed by the Telecom\nRegulatory Commission to limit SIM cards to two per person will not resolve the\nproblem. Rather, it will affect the telecommunications market. Instead of\nlimiting the purchase of SIM cards, which will be an unfruitful exercise, the\nauthorities should focus on \u2018profiling and cross-platform intelligence\nsharing.\u2019 Even on regulating Madrasas, there is no guarantee that it will be\npossible to monitor what will be taught, since syllabuses are not unified.\nCourses offered by Arabic colleges in the Arabic language are taught across\n1,675 centres in 24 districts in the country. There is no serious oversight of\nMadrasas, though they have mushroomed around the country in recent years.
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\nWhile the government struggles to introduce new regulations to improve national\nsecurity, it is vital to keep in mind future possible threats. Security lapses\nwill damage economic infrastructure, increase security costs, disrupt markets\nand spread fear in a manner not so different from the Middle East. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Asanga Abeyagoonasekera is the director general of the National\nSecurity Think Tank of Sri Lanka (INSSSL) under the Sri Lankan Ministry of\nDefense. The views expressed here are his own. This article was initially published\nby Hudson Institute Washington DC. http:\/\/www.southasiaathudson.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/17\/aerial-fears<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera The truth is that this technology really began to take off right at the beginning of my presidency\u201d Barack Obama (Obama speaking on drone strikes to Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic interview, 21 Dec 2016) Following the 4\/21 Easter Sunday attacks in Colombo, Sri Lanka\u2019s civil aviation authority discovered a drone belonging to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}