On November 11, another loitering munition hit Turkish-backed militants in the northwestern Syrian region of Greater Idlib.
The loitering munition struck a van of the Free Idlib Army near the town of Maarbalit in the al-Zawiya Mount in southern Idlib. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the van was transporting militants. The London-based monitoring group claimed that no one was killed in the strike.
The Free Idlib Army is a member of the Turkish-backed National Front for Liberation, a close ally of al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
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Last week, seven Uzbek jihadists from an elite HTS unit known as “al-Majmu’a al-Istshhadiyah” [the Suicidal Squad] were killed when a loitering munition struck their gathering in the town of Sarjah in the al-Zawiya Mount.
Prior to that, Loitering munitions struck positions near the towns of Kafar Takharim, Deir Sunbul, Arihah and al-Bara in southern Idlib. A howitzer was destroyed and three Turkish-backed militants were killed as a result of the strikes.
Some opposition sources and activists claim that these precision-guided loitering munitions were deployed by Russian forces. Others, however, believe that these munitions may be Iranian, or even Syrian-made.
I’ll bet kamikaze drones will be the next big export market. The Chinese are already hard at developing them into self-directed AI swarms.
When I was a boy this used to be science fiction. Not even good science fiction.
Keep pounding them.