Hezbollah's unmanned drones

Hezbollah's unmanned drones

Combs spouts off about the unmanned drone used by Hezbollah to attack a small Israeli warship:

I wonder how many drones Hezbollah has and what size they are. You think Hezbollah's drones were built in the Palestinian National Drone Factory? Me neither. I'm guessing they come from either Iran or Syria. Either way, don't you think there's a good chance that the "country of origin," as those little labels put it, was Saddam's Iraq?

From the Fox News story:

Israeli military officials said the drone apparently was developed by Hezbollah. The Lebanese guerrilla group has managed to fly unmanned spy drones over northern Israel at least twice in recent years.

So, was the drone developed by Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, or Saddam's Baathist regime in Iraq? It's hard to say from over here on the other side of the ocean, but it isn't as though a model plane is that hard to come by, even a really big one. Pack one of those suckers with enough high explosive, and if you've got line-of-sight control of the aircraft, you've got an attack drone. What would be a difficult, more capable version, would be one that had a number of sensors and video onboard, with telemetry and video sent back without line-of-sight. To me, it isn't unreasonable that Hezbollah could have taken a large scale remote controlled aircraft and made the modifications necessary to bomb the Israeli ship.

Update: Forbes reports that the ship was hit by an Iranian-made missile, not a drone. How did Hezbollah manage to get its clutches on a missile made by Iran? Does this "open declaration of war" by Hezbollah now also include an open declaration of war by Iran?

Technorati Tags: Warfare, Robots, Lebanon, Israel, Hezbollah