DAVID ALWAYS BEATS GOLIATH:

How al-Qaida & Co. Are Responding to Drone Warfare: Militant jihadists in Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia are becoming increasingly afraid of US drones. Despites their boasts of having shot down dozens of aircraft, they have yet to come up with effective countermeasures. (Yassin Musharbash, 3/12/10, Der Spiegel)

Their paranoia has been compounded by the fact that there is at least one informant behind every successful drone attack -- someone who identifies the target or marks it in some way. As a way of discouraging people from informing on them, the terror groups have decapitated suspected traitors on several occasions and circulated videos of their deaths.

Observers have also noticed that the militants have adapted their tactics to meet the new threat. They only cross the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in small groups. In addition, military and training sites are being disguised more carefully and decentralized so that they are less conspicuous to the analysts who evaluate images captured from the drones.

But they still haven't found an effective way to counter the drones' electronic eyes and ears -- or their deadly payloads. "Jihadists have talked extensively about the drones," says terrorism expert Jarret Brachman, who closely monitors discussions that terrorists and their sympathizers hold online. "There has been little sophisticated discussion, at least openly, about real countermeasures that jihadists can take in order to avoid being targeted by drones."

Effective countermeasures? It's surprising they don't worship the angry gods of the sky.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 12, 2010 2:24 PM