Unmanned Aerial Vehicle – a Lethal Weapon of Tomorrow for Terrorists

Abstract

Terrorism has been used as a form of combat for centuries. Over the years, the tools used by terrorists have evolved. While attacks with cold weapons still take place, nowadays terrorists also use explosives, machine guns, guided missiles and increasingly often drones. The present growth of the arms market has led to terrorist groups being heavily militarized, as they can successfully acquire modern weapons and subsequently use them in their attacks. This state of affairs has directly affected the security of states and societies, and subsequently became a principal subject of discussion on international security forums. Contemporary global terrorist threats also harness artificial intelligence that supports weaponized robots, missiles, as well as clusters of killer drones. This narrative arose a few years ago, indicating that terrorists may have a vastly greater array of options at their disposal because they may cooperate with some states that would back them up. The chance for terrorist organisations to gain access to artificial intelligence technologies only increased due to the global competition surrounding it. Due to this potential spreading, terrorists will have a chance to operate weapons supported by AI. These events then merge into a deeply concerning scenario which conceivably may have to be confronted. The threat of terrorist organisations possessing and using swarms of drones does not seem to be very distant.

Full text

Nowa Polityka Wschodnia 2022, nr 1 (32) ISSN 2084-3291
DOI: 10.15804/npw20223203
www.czasopisma.marszalek.com.pl/pl/10-15804/npw
s. 44–60
aLeKsander o L e c h 
Baltic Defence College
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3793-5913
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle – a Lethal Weapon
of Tomorrow for Terrorists
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle – a Lethal Weapon of Tomorrow for
Terrorists
Abstract
Terrorism has been used as aform of combat for centuries. Over the years, the tools used
by terrorists have evolved. While attacks with cold weapons still take place, nowadays
terrorists also use explosives, machine guns, guided missiles and increasingly oen drones.
e present growth of the arms market has led to terrorist groups being heavily militarized,
as they can successfully acquire modern weapons and subsequently use them in their
attacks. is state of affairs has directly affected the security of states and societies, and
subsequently became aprincipal subject of discussion on international security forums.
Contemporary global terrorist threats also harness artificial intelligence that supports
weaponized robots, missiles, as well as clusters of killer drones. is narrative arose afew
years ago, indicating that terrorists may have avastly greater array of options at their
disposal because they may cooperate with some states that would back them up. e
chance for terrorist organisations to gain access to artificial intelligence technologies only
increased due to the global competition surrounding it. Due to this potential spreading,
terrorists will have achance to operate weapons supported by AI.ese events then
merge into adeeply concerning scenario which conceivably may have to be confronted.
e threat of terrorist organisations possessing and using swarms of drones does not
seem to be very distant.
Keywords: terrorism, drones, artificial intelligence, technology, security

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Беспилотный летательный аппарат – смертоносное оружие
завтрашнего дня террористов
Аннотация
Веками терроризм существовал как один из видов боевой атаки. С годами методы,
используемые террористами изменились. И хотя вооруженные атаки с применением
холодного оружия все еще имеют место, то в настоящее время террористы также
используют взрывчатки, пулеметы, управляемые ракеты и все чаще беспилотные
летательные аппараты (БЛП). Нынешний рост рынка оружия привел ксерьезной
милитаризации террористических групп, поскольку теперь они могут успешно
приобретать современное оружие и впоследствии применять его в своих атаках.
Такое положение дел напрямую повлияло на безопасность государств и обществ
и впоследствии стало основным предметом обсуждения на международных фо-
румах по безопасности. Современные глобальные террористические угрозы также
используют искусственный интеллект, в виде боевых роботов, ракет, а также
БЛП.Подобный нарратив появился несколько лет назад, указывая на то, что тер-
рористы могут обладать большими возможностями, поскольку могут сотрудничать
с некоторыми государствами, которые их поддерживают. Таким образом, веро-
ятность того, что террористические организации получат доступ к технологиям
искусственного интеллекта увеличивается благодаря конкуренции в этой сфере
на мировом уровне. Вследствие потенциального распространени, у террористов
появится возможность использовать оружие, поддерживаемое ИИ.Все это может
развиться в очень тревожный сценарий, с которым придется столкнуться. Угроза
того, что террористические организации получат на вооружение и будут применять
беспилотные летательные аппараты не кажется слишком призрачной.
Ключевые слова: терроризм, беспилотники, искусственный интеллект, технологии,
безопасность
Introduction
T
errorism is presently seen as amajor threat to global order. The negative
nature of this phenomenon, even if it were to be demonstrated in the
form of asingle attack, can entirely disrupt states and international organisa-
tions from functioning normally. The destructive effects of terrorist activities
impact the victim’s economic, political and social situation and hinder the
process of strengthening their security potential. Moreover, an unexpected
terrorist attack calls into question the effectiveness of the counterterrorism
efforts and methods of combating dangers related to this threat.

ARTYKUŁY
 46
The phenomenon has been used as aform of combat since the dawn
of time. Indeed, the manifestation of beliefs and views of, among others,
political, religious, or ideological nature through aggression and violence
against astate, has been used numerous times in the past. Over the years, only
the tools used by terrorists have evolved. While attacks with cold weapons
are still common, nowadays terrorists also use explosives, machine guns,
or even guided missiles. The present growth of the arms market has led to
terrorist groups being heavily militarized, as they can successfully acquire
new weapons and subsequently use them in their attacks. This state of
affairs has directly affected the security of individual states and societies,
and subsequently became aprincipal subject of discussion in international
security forums.
Contemporary global terrorist threats mainly harness artificial intelli-
gence1 that supports weaponized robots, missiles as well as clusters of killer
drones. This narrative arose afew years ago, indicating that terrorists may
have avastly greater array of options at their disposal because they may
cooperate with some states that will back them up. The chance for terrorist
organisations to gain access to artificial intelligence technologies only in-
creased due to the global competition surrounding it. The reality of numer-
ous articles, shows and films used on military training grounds, prepared by
their respective wealthy countries, highlights each of the superpower’s efforts
to flaunt their achievements and solidify their lead in the AI competition.
For most superpowers, the systems with AI support are imperative on the
modern battlefield. This importance is only highlighted by the obstacles put
in place by the US, China, Russia or Iran to ensure that their competitors’
intelligence agencies put the efforts to both secure and steal research data, to
ensure that they are not left behind in their race. Yet, increased interest will
provoke further development and widespread usage of the technology. Due
1 ere is no commonly agreed-upon definition of AI.e AI field is going through
constant and prompt changes and developments, which results in the fact that authors of
any publication on AI may present their very own definition of the term, which would be
as appropriate and adequate as those presented by others. For the past decade or so, there
has been asignificant revival of the interest of AI, and this technology is swily growing
and attracting attention across many fields. Indeed, since 2010 the amount of academic
publications on the topic of AI has risen 8-fold.

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to this potential spreading, terrorists will have achance to operate weapons
supported by AI.These events then merge into adeeply concerning scenario
which conceivably may have to be confronted.
UAVs, such as drones, can be the first types of weapon platforms that
could be controlled by AI and manipulated for terrorist activities. Their
simplicity enables terrorists to conduct an attack without the involvement of
ahigh number of people or logistics. Depending on the scale of the attack,
some strikes may even be coordinated by asingle person.
The authors examine arange of articles, reports and analyses made avail-
able by various experts and research organisations. The research conducted
was based on methods such as synthesis and deduction, and the authors
made an attempt to develop forecasts and scenarios to identify potential
threats to international security. Furthermore, acase study encompassing
the actions taken so far by terrorists (and highlighting their potential capa-
bilities, especially in the region of the Middle East) is of key importance to
this article. The whole study is complemented by conclusions based on the
interdisciplinary research of the phenomenon of using advanced technology
in the form of unmanned aerial vehicles for terrorist activities.
The threat of terrorist organisations possessing and using swarm of
drones does not seem to be decidedly distant. However, the difference be-
tween predictions and reality is noticeable; such dangers become more real
when their visibility or proximity increases. Terrorism as aconcept has many
definitions since many countries define threats of terrorist nature differently.
It is true that some actions may be characterised by one superpower as ter-
rorism and by another as military acts executed for security reasons. Equally
real is the use of aterrorist organisation by astate actor to achieve their own
objectives. This study also aims to be one of the stages in the scientific process
centred at defining contemporary relations in the security environment.
The use of AI drones by terrorists
Non-state actors, including terrorist organisations, have been trying to use
drones against state actors for years. According to information in the media,
there have been asignificant number of incidents and none of them was
fatal until the end of 2016. Drones were usually used to fly over aspecific

ARTYKUŁY
 48
section of territory to check for potential weapons and gathering intelligence
on military bases. Despite having limited capabilities, terrorists were able to
carry out successful missions and even kill other terrorists. At the beginning
of the 21
st
century, the most common region that saw their use was Israel
and Pakistan. Progressively, the facilities of terrorist organisations improved
and more attacks in different countries have been noticed in the last 5 years.
By adapting to technological improvements, extremists managed to
achieve their goal and ultimately carried out adeadly attack with aUAV
against astate actor, on the 2nd October 2016. It was the very first successful
attack using this kind of technology, most likely perpetrated by ISIS (Ware,
2019). Until then, according to information from the Pentagon, terrorists
had only been using simple and basic versions of drones which are easy to
purchase and use to conduct surveillance, as well as transporting explosives.
As part of their tactics, the U.S.forces operated special equipment to defeat
UAVs using anti-drone rifles to disrupt the signal between the machine and
its remote (Gibbons-Neff, 2016).
In another example, ISIS sent an unmanned aerial vehicle loaded with
explosives to attack French and Kurdish positions in the northern part of
Iraq: Erbil. Two Kurdish soldiers were killed, and other two French special
operations soldiers were severely injured. Explosives were hidden in asmall
plane filled with Styrofoam. This is one of the ISIS’ most popular methods
when drones are used as aruse in order to get as close as possible to the
troops’ position (Guibert, 2016). It must be underlined that this attack was
the very beginning of terrorist activities reinforced by highly developed
technologies, and also an indication in which direction extremists will go.
In 2017, ISIS announced the formation of adivision named ‘Unmanned
Aircraft of the Mujahideen’, whose main goal was to develop and use UAVs
as part of along-term strategy for advancing and weaponizing drone tech-
nology. The group has been using drone technology for surveillance and
targeting, mainly in Iraq and Syria. In spite of increasing losses of territory,
ISIS is continuously making advances in modernisation, manufacturing and
deployment of drones. In addition, the organisation was able to drone strike
abattle tank in Mosul in 2017 (Rogoway, 2017).
In early 2019, an unprecedented kind of attack occurred: aswarm of
drones attacked two Russian military installations in Syria. The drones in

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question had barometric sensors, which allowed them to change altitude,
and highly developed GPS guidance with specific targets programmed to be
destroyed (Morton, 2018). In other words, the drones that took part in the
attack did not require further instructions or guidance from terrorists after
they were launched. Ten of such drones were equipped with explosive devices
and descended over the Hmeimim airbase, while three other ones targeted
the Russian Naval Combat Support ship close to Tartus. Other weaponry
included shells filled with Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate (PETN), which were
attached to their wings. To make matters worse, the UAVs were flying at
low altitudes and could not be detected by radar systems. It is unknown
whether the drones were controlled by artificial intelligence and whether
communicating with one another. Yet, their attacks were synchronised in
such afashion that their multi-angled attack confused air defence systems.
Eventually, the attack, which had been probably prepared by aSyrian rebel
group, failed. Russian systems reacted through the combined use of kinetic
and electronic air protection models.
Later that year acraft remotely piloted by Houthi attacked Saudi Arabia’s
oil facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais. The rebels aimed at the world’s largest
oil processing facility, which is essential to global energy supplies (Kumar,
2019). The perpetrators sent between 10 and 25 drones which carried out the
operation as aswarm. The UAVs attacked in at least two waves and caused
enough damage that putting out the fires posed aconsiderable challenge.
The verification of satellite images revealed that there was aminimum of
19 strikes that damaged 14 storage containers. Although Saudi Arabia has
MIM-104 Patriot missile defence systems, it was not able to detect them due
to flying too low and from multiple angles, thus once again rendering the
air defence ineffective. Besides, there have been hundreds of attacks with
drones and missile against Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure in the past two years
(Rieas, 2020).
Such types of attacks are the first step to symbolise that technological
advancements can allow weapons to (in part or fully) independently destroy
the infrastructure of an enemy. Most of the countries progressing through the
AI race offer smaller, faster, and virtually autonomous drones, which in time
will only increase the severity of future attacks. At the same time, governments
and private companies have control over these types of advanced technologies

ARTYKUŁY
 50
and because of this, the data is at aconsiderable risk of being targeted for
espionage (for example, their sheer numbers offer many options for actors
to steal the information through cyberattacks). Non-state actors already use
similar equipment to gain information about the location of armed forces,
type of armament or potential movements of soldiers. In this regard, terrorists
operate similarly to state forces and owning advanced technologies will allow
them to fight at amore equal footing with them by finding new ways to com-
bat them (similarly to how private military companies also operate similarly
to state forces due to the possession of advanced technology). Due to this, it
seems that each actor (state or non-state) must accept aworld where the UAVs
controlled by artificial intelligence become aprimary tool on the battlefield,
even though there are debates and questions about the ethics of deploying
drones on the battlefield (BBC, 2017). The usage of drones has created an
atmosphere of fear where it is imperative to develop counter-measures to
prevent their use. Hence, it is obligatory to improve defensive and offensive
armament if astate wants to be akey player in the global race and the future.
Nevertheless, the truth is that UAVs are relatively inexpensive and easily
manufactured meaning that their loss has little impact on terrorist activity.
The most prominent organisations are currently developing means of elec-
tronically hardening their drones and adjusting their strategies to make them
less susceptible to defensive measures. Non-state actors are also boosting
their chances of using swarming drones controlled by AI.Only afew tech-
nologies are so effective in reducing the physical, financial or psychological
costs of deployment for an operation, which is acommonly accepted benefit
favouring drone usage.
There are at least afew factors which lead to the frequent usage of UAVs
by criminal groups, terrorists, separatists or rebels. It strongly depends on the
logistical, financial and territorial opportunities. In this vein, the following
aspects should be indicated.
Long-distance usage
Most terrorist groups can conduct an attack from long distances. Having the
technology which allows for tracking down atarget, as well as coordinate
aset of actions with an objective in mind is aperfect weapon for war. The

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biggest terrorist organisations have their headquarters set in the Middle
East and Africa, or are trying to seize apart of the territory in their region.
If it is aregion where they are regularly clashing with the state’s army or
it is close to aborder, it is far more cost-effective to send in drones with
bombs. The distance from the headquarters of the terrorist group could
be challenging to traverse, but if there is apossibility to send an UAV then
this becomes an easier task. Moreover, aerial superiority is akey tactic that
is used by many states while fighting terrorists. If organisations achieve air
superiority through using UAVs, then this not only becomes an issue of
distance or logistics, but also an issue of aforce multiplier. In along-distance
attack with drones, the main goal of terrorists is to surprise the opponent
and then do as much damage as possible, ideally without using their own
forces. Artificial intelligence, through controlling drones, is able to track
down, eliminate atarget and immediately go back to the terrorists’ shelter.
In this scenario, the long-distance battle with terrorists has never been
more believable.
Additionally, where terrorists can carry out an attack with drones, it will
demand aresponse from state authorities against said attack. At the same
time, terrorists use that as aform of distraction to carry out asimilar attack
in adifferent location. When all state resources are focused on eliminating
the threat in one location, the natural absence of forces will be exploited. For
instance, Anders Breivk detonated abomb outside the office of the Prime
Minister of Norway to distract everyone, and then went to the Utoya island
where he killed 69 people. Aterrorist may work to acquire and prepare
multiple drones to launch asynchronised attack in multiple parts of densely
populated areas. Where one drone strikes, the authorities will respond, and
this will be arepeating pattern with more drone strike occurring successively;
thus straining the resources of local authorities and causing substantially
more chaos and panic. The perpetrator may or may not even be required
to physically participate in the attack, as artificial intelligence will be able to
coordinate and carry out the attack with little or no input from the terror-
ist. This will also offer the terrorist increased anonymity due to not being
required to reveal himself or offering agreater window of relocation away
from the authorities, allowing him greater survivability and therefore chances
to carry out more attacks into the future.

ARTYKUŁY
 52
Affordable price for advanced technology
Due to the technological race and rivalry between powerful countries, it is
much more likely that terrorist groups will finally obtain AI drones. The
price for that unique technology has been increasing by the day, and its
common deployment by the USA, China, Russia, India, the United Kingdom,
or Germany on the field will result in an easier access to that weapon. Overall,
the difficulty in acquiring AI drones will be smaller than one believes, and
there are afew factors that lead to this affirmation. The global involvement
of superpowers in wars within the Middle East and Africa, as well as the
continuous improvement of defence systems and the determination of state
interests being centred on economic and regional security (thus committing
further resources in the region) allows terrorist organisations an opportunity
to scavenge, requisition or even purchase such equipment where possible. It
is not acase of ‘if’ but ‘when and against who’ will they use them, leading to
AI drone usage by these extremists bringing new dynamics on the battlefield
with aweapon that is already commonly fielded by state armies. Their re-
sourcefulness can allow them to either acquire them on their own, or become
recipients of these technologies through state sponsorships.
The novelty of these technologies will make them hard to acquire and
purchase at first. However, it is amatter of time until the first group gains
access to them and conducts terrorist attacks on their own means. It can be
sold by aspecific country, or it can be acquired through illegal investments
in third countries. Nevertheless, the cost of purchase and future handling
will diminish to manageable levels by at least afew terrorist organisations
with alot of finances supporting their operations already.
Due to the international threat of terrorism, there is awidespread belief
that extremist organisations are likely to use unmanned aerial vehicles con-
trolled by artificial intelligence and to launch terrorist attacks. Among the
organisations that have sufficient financial resources to obtain access to such
advanced technologies, there are 10 that should be especially noted: al-Qaeda,
ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK),
the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, Kata’ib Hezbollah, Lashkar-e-Taiba
and the Boko Haram. Apart from their own finances, state sponsorship is
also amajor factor in their ability to obtain these technologies, due to such

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support translating into major logistic and economic benefits for those or-
ganisations (such as Hezbollah) (Hoenig, 2014). Such cooperation usually
occurs when countries want to advance their agendas using terrorists, instead
of engaging with their own resources, such as their military.
Undemanding process of exploitation
It appears that terrorists will most likely not develop their own artificial
intelligence and drones that would be supplied to the international market.
There is no time for such along-term and financially demanding process –
extremist groups must be supplied with specific weapons which are ready
for immediate use. The acquisition process is dependent on the supplier,
especially when the organisation does not have its own industry or relevant
engineers. Only afew technical issues are up to the operator: determining
the target of the attack, arming the platform, and maintaining it. Obstacles
to programming adrone and providing technical support should not be an
issue if the weapon assembled and delivered to them and thus it is ready for
Map. 1. Potential places of operation of the largest terrorist organizations in the
Middle East
Source: own study

ARTYKUŁY
 54
use. However, even if the weapons provided are ready for use, terrorists will
still have the opportunity to improve their AI capabilities and can become
amassive threat to the international community, with states seeing its se-
curity jeopardised as aresult. Terrorists would be able to receive weaponry
from across the world, with this being subjected to the secrecy surrounding
the supplier. Since UAVs will be equipped with AI in the future, engineers
familiar with this kind of software will face no difficulty in modifying or
adapting it, making terrorists able to use them with ease.
Labelling terrorist activity
The information about terrorists involved in an attack carried out with AI
drones could be made public depending on the needs of the perpetrator,
the international context and, above all, whether there is enough evidence
to blame an organisation and not astate provider instead. Some terrorist
organisations such as the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, and Hamas might prefer
to make an impact and loudly manifest their new success. It could be done to
announce to the international community that they have this kind of weapon
and can continuously compete with state armies. Moreover, they could use
their first attacks as means of spreading panic by threatening their enemies
with the following raids. On the other hand, there will be groups which
would prefer not to be associated with murderous attacks of this kind, and
those are probably smaller nationalist or separatist groups, but still want to
coerce their opponents.
Given the tendency for terrorist organisations to show their presence and
power, they may characteristically mark their drones with flags or post their
usage on social media. This ensures accountability towards blaming extremist
organisations, since it would be difficult in these circumstances to hide their
allegiance. Most of the largest terrorist organisations have their territories
under control, and from there, they will conduct an attack at long distance.
Meanwhile, if astrike happens in aforeign country, where terrorists are
required to activate adrone from adistance, there will be no need to deploy
terrorists there and proceed with traditional ways of carrying out an attack.
The machine can be sent, for example, from the suburbs of Paris to hit the
Eiffel Tower, with the rest depending on the response of local authorities.

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Anti-aircraft warfare improvement
Recently, the deployment of drones has accelerated across many battlefields;
becoming anatural extension to the tools already available for war. Additio-
nally, new tests are permanently being conducted, which will increase the
combat potential of Unmanned Aerial Combat Vehicles (UACV) in many
situations, such as destroying or misleading anti-aircraft defences. Having
the advantage of using untraceable UAVs controlled by artificial intelligence
would become the most essential element of one’s own armament.
It is quite evident that most countries which are involved in conflicts
such as those in Syria and Libya are testing new weapons. Furthermore,
some of these attempts offered outstanding results. During the conflict in
Libya, Turkey supplied drones for the Government of National Accord that
allegedly destroyed aPantsir missile system (Pancyr-S1) given by the Rus-
sians to the oppositional Libyan National Army (LNA). The incapacity to
eliminate the airborne threat indicates the need to bolster the effectiveness
of their air defences. It is strongly related to the ongoing conflicts where new
technologies are being used, which leads to global competition in defeating
anti-aircraft systems (Parachini, Wilson, 2020).
Terrorist organisations will certainly try to obtain these kinds of advanced
weapons. They are endeavouring to operate on the same level as state organ-
isms, frequently marking their atrocious presence. In one of many examples,
anumber of Saudi Arabian oil facilities were the targets of missile and drone
strikes in September 2019, carried out by Houthi rebels. Even fully equipped
countries with powerful security capabilities can fall victims to terrorist
attacks, resulting in loss of both human life and critical infrastructure in-
tegrity, since they could be exposed to apossible attack. Currently, targets,
especially critical infrastructure, cannot be secured or moved if air defences
fail to protect it, and attackers have awide range of electronic and kinetic
weapon options to utilise at their disposal.
Quest for drones’ attacks
As long as these highly developed technologies, which have the potential
of outsmarting or overwhelming defences and shocking the international

ARTYKUŁY
 56
community, are not available to terrorist organisations, there is little need for
concern. Unfortunately, bilateral agreements and self-serving interests are
more important for the majority of countries, resulting in highly demanded
products, which are often desirable and easy to sell on the black market,
becoming available. For terrorists, every new technology is worth its weight
in gold. Some state actors will collaborate and share advanced technologies
to reach their objectives. Therefore, extremists will get drones controlled by
AI sooner rather than later. Terrorists would be ecstatic at the opportunity
of using these tools for perpetuating an attack in the name of their ideology.
The very first step of having that capability is to share with them the new
technologies and deliver asmall number of drones to carry out attacks.
Alternatively, terrorist combatants may be presented with the opportunity to
scavenge or requisition equipment fielded by their opponents on the battle-
field, as it happened on multiple occasions during areas of conflict. Extensive
usage of AI-supported equipment may increase the chances of terrorists to
seize such devices through sheer increase in the number of opportunities
of seizing them. Subsequently, not only will terrorists continue to have an
impact on the situation in the global security environment, but artificial
intelligence will also play an amplifying role as it will be able to carry out
attacks as well. Eventually, the threat will be doubled and spiral out of control.
The harnessing of AI systems by terrorists may not be immediate because
they must adapt and understand the new technology. Nevertheless, they
have knowledge about cybersecurity, which involves the hacking of security
systems or sending malicious applications to take control of smartphones
and computers and that also offers transferrable skills that will allow them
to quickly grasp the notions of AI software.
Conclusion
Swarms of drones pose amassive threat for states’ defensive systems all
over the world. Alarge number of aerial vehicles ready to eliminate the
opponent, each carrying more than 200 kg of explosives, could be challenging
to stop. Weapon fired could be unleashed by some drones and others may
simultaneously drop bombs, perfectly executing amission. However, it is
relatively impossible to carry out this kind of attack by humans controlling

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the drones. No division of soldiers could control the flight path of each
vehicle in aswarm as effectively as AI.In the event of acomplex and specific
type of mission, only one person should be responsible for one drone. In
this scenario, human control would be comparatively more chaotic than AI
control due to the lack of aquick and clear communication channel during
the rapid attack. Moreover, anti-drone technology enables defenders to jam
the signal from the controller. Thus, only artificial intelligence, which laun-
ches an attack by itself, is able to steer avast number of machines avoiding
air defence systems in aperfectly synchronised fashion while maintaining
command of its assets.
In addition, it is feasible that drones will have acombat load of up to
10 tons sooner rather than later. Russia, one of the major developers of
AI technology, has already started its work on advanced drones which will
operate at low altitudes at aspeed of 1,400 kilometres per hour and carry
payloads of 2.8-8 tons (McDermott, 2019). Therefore, an attack made by
aswarm of drones carrying at least afew tons of explosives would become
the deadliest weapon in the world, excluding nuclear weapons.
Apart from using AI drones to boost their power, terrorists can also weigh
on the possibility of using them for the purpose of anonymity, such as to
allow the human factor to remain concealed when carrying out an attack
ending in success or failure. However, akey limitation to this tactic prevents
the organisation from exploiting this from sowing chaos by attempting to
pose as astate actor: intelligence agencies are extremely resourceful entities
able to collate information and identify the background of the device used
based on the features of the object, the circumstance in which the object (or
others similar to it) may have been received or used and the patterns that
compose an attack. Intelligence agencies are already aware of the possibility
of terrorists harnessing drones for attack, as they have caught some in the
past. Furthermore, intelligence agencies, even those in rival states, would
be inclined to share certain pieces of intelligence with one another in the
interest of combating acommon enemy, like aterrorist organisation, and
states would not immediately resort to pointing blame and playing into the
attackers’ hands without knowing all the facts.
Scale wise, it is possible that drone warfare between state and non-state
actors would also be akin to the fights between state’s air forces for asserting

ARTYKUŁY
 58
the dominance of the skies. Terrorists would have the ability to fight asu-
perpower’s air dominance and even harness aerial equipment, but thus
gaining the ability to subvert key advantage superpowers and state actors
have enjoyed for many years in the fight against terrorism.
Should terrorists gain access to AI-controlled weaponry, this will greatly
amplify their threat against the international community. First of all, they
will no longer be limited by geography and borders to stage attacks in other
countries. For example, terrorist organisations may attack facilities near one’s
border or deploy adrone within the US or Europe to carry out an attack.
Secondly, the recruitment process of new members will boost their numerical
strength and decrease the need for suicide bombers due to substituting them
with drones. Thirdly, it will be easier for organisations to obtain classified
information about opposing armies through AI-supported hacking opera-
tions. Finally, it is considered likely that terrorists will focus their attention
against the US and its coalition as aresult; since AI was already verified
to be one of the main threats to the US military. In this scenario, terrorist
organisations lucky enough to get their hands on such technology become
one of the greatest and innovative threats in the 21
st
century, but such aturn
of events seems to be somewhat less likely. In the case of states offering their
support to terrorists, it is extremely unlikely that they would give away the
latest technologies out of fear of their proxies becoming uncontrollable; one
needs to consider the repercussions of Hezbollah going rogue if Iran provides
it with support of this kind.
Equally, the prospect of using AI in war appears both tempting and
alarming. Whereas AI can extremely quickly become as effective as soldiers
who gained skills and experience throughout the years, it does not possess
amoral compass unlike human soldiers. The usage of AI weaponry also
means limited or outright no inhibitions affecting their combat behaviour
and doctrine in the long term. Terrorist organisations are responsible for
thousands of deaths, civilian and military, and have no quarrel with using
advanced technologies to increase that number. For such groups, AI is just
another means of competing against enemies – with the only change being
the tool, not the ideology. Their characteristically fanatical belief in the im-
portance of their agenda is what they advance as agroup with. Therefore, they
will not be restrained by concepts of decency, morality or proportionality,

aLeKsander oLech  unmanned aeriaL VehicLe…59 
which makes them barely different from AI-controlled robots. As aresult,
AI itself is nothing more than ameans to maximise damage and minimise
losses. Moreover, drones can be used for propaganda purposes to flaunt
one’s own advancements in technology; all while considering that the fanatic
nature of terrorists will push them to use either agun or adrone to attack
against regular armies or civilian targets on aregular basis, even if AI is not
critical to their operations.
ALEKSANDER OLECH, PHD
Baltic Defence College
Riia 12, 51010 Tartu, Estonia
aleksander.olech@baltdefcol.org
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