The terror of drone warfare in Ethiopia

The cheapest air force in the world has changed the face of the battlefield in the civil war between Ethiopian government forces and rebels of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Multiple purchases of armed surveillance drones at a fraction of the cost of buying fighter jets and bombers have provided Ethiopia’s leader, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, with a war-winning weapon system that has forced the rebels to take cover. The TPLF has no alternative but to hide from the relentless aerial bombardment. The rebels in the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia have been fighting the government forces since Abiy launched a military campaign in Tigray in November last year. The rebels battled hard and had made such progress that they marched south and were within about 80 miles from the capital Addis Ababa. The government was facing a violent overthrow. A decision to invest in armed drones, widely available from countries which have developed reputations for building cheap and accurate systems not only halted the advance but also threw into disarray the battle plans of the rebels and reversed their territorial gains after months of fighting. The dramatic change in fortune for the TPLF and the role armed drones have played have highlighted how the concept of warfare has been transformed in recent years. With drones and foreign expertise to operate them, the Ethiopian government has been able to gain total aerial superiority over rebel forces that have neither the weapons nor any form of air defence to protect themselves. The slaughter that has followed is reminiscent of the final hours of the 1991 Gulf War when US Apache attack helicopters and fighter aircraft picked off Iraqi forces as they fled from Kuwait City up the six-lane highway to Mutla Ridge en route to the border with Iraq. The success story for the government in Addis Ababa will be a lesson learned by other small-power nations needing to arm against internal or external adversaries. It will also boost significantly the armed drones export by countries which have cleverly exploited this new market by developing their own systems for overseas sales. Turkey, Iran and the United Arab Emirates head the list. “It’s no longer just the big powers such as the US, China, Russia, UK and France producing armed drones. Turkey and Iran are selling significant numbers abroad and for countries that can’t afford fighter aircraft, this is a game-changer,” said Paul Scharre, a former senior Pentagon official who helped develop US policy on drones and is author of the award-winning Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War. “It means these countries can have air power at a much lower cost. The drones also perform surveillance missions, thus changing the whole tactical landscape,” he said. “Clearly they are not as advanced as F-35 stealth fighters but these countries [such as Ethiopia] don’t need F-35s or F-16s because the armed drones provide them with the level of air power that suits their requirements ,” Scharre said. “Drones also provide other advantages over the traditional fighter aircraft. They have longer endurance and can provide vital surveillance of the battlefield, allowing for precision strikes,” he said. Drones had a significant impact on changing the battle landscape in Nagorno-Karabakh last year where Azerbaijan, supported by Turkey-provided drones, won a 44-day war against Armenia for control of the disputed enclave. Turkish drone airpower also saved Tripoli in the war in Libya between the government of national accord (GNA) and the forces of retired Major-General Khalifa Haftar. In Ethiopia, the Addis Ababa government sought multiple sources for a rapid supply of armed drones and began purchasing about a year ago. Turkey , with its Bayrakter TB2, and Iran, selling its Mohajer-6, were willing suppliers. The United Arab Emirates provided China’s Wing Loong-2 drone. The Bayrakter is around $5 million each and can carry four small laser-guided missiles, the Chinese drone is about $2 million and is armed with eight weapons, and the Mohajer-6, an estimated $3 million, is fitted with two missiles. About 90 per cent of armed drone transfers come from China. But with the US reluctant to sell its Reaper and other drones abroad, even to allies, countries such as Turkey and Iran have moved in to snatch some of the export potential from the Chinese. “This spectrum of drone capability is like an air force on the cheap for the Ethiopian government forces. They acquired these drones, initially from Iran, then the Chinese ones from the Emiratis and finally the TB2 from Turkey, which allowed them to spot rebel ground troops and carry out precision strikes,” said Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defence programme at the Washington-based Centre for a New American Security (CNAS). “The TB2 can stick around for about 24 hours, so they could find rebel forces who had no way of defending themselves,” she said. The Tigrayans, she said, were trying to acquire an effective counter to the drones. “But air defence systems are more sophisticated and expensive,” she said. Meanwhile, the Abiy government can not only rely on its arsenal of drones to guarantee battlefield advantage but it reportedly has technical experts from their foreign suppliers to help operate and maintain them. The use of armed drones is no longer a choice solely for nation states. Modified commercial drones fitted with makeshift explosive devices in the hands of terrorists and jihadist insurgents is already a reality. Four years ago Isis revealed in a progaganda video that it had developed its own bomb-carrying quadcopter drones. The off-the-shelf drones not only proved effective weapon systems in Iraq and elsewhere but also demonstrated the heightened publicity value of such attacks from the air. drone strikes create a greater sense of vulnerability than even a fighter bomber flying overhead and generate more media attention. The innovative methods used by Isis will have encouraged other non-state actors engaged in conflicts around the world to devise their own drones. However, more alarming is the possibility that terrorist organisations might be able to get their hands on bigger and better drones now that the export market has expanded so rapidly. China has shown no hesitation in offering its drones to overseas customers. Its CH-4 drone which looks like the US Reaper although is not as technologically advanced, has been sold to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. More than 100 countries now have armed or surveillance drones. The potential for such systems to end up in the wrong hands must be high.