The Air Force pilot carefully throttled the controls of a missile-firing MQ-1 Predator drone flying half a world away in northern Syria. Suddenly his headset crackled to life.
Militants firing from bombed-out buildings had ambushed a U.S.-backed militia on a rubble-strewn street in Raqqah, Islamic State’s self-declared capital and one of its last urban strongholds. The militia was pinned down, and their commander wanted the drone to take out the gunmen.
The pilot studied the surveillance video streaming onto his screen. A captain, he instructed the staff sergeant at his side to set the drone’s target sights and powered up a Hellfire missile under its wing.
“Rifle,” the pilot said, and the missile soared away.
“Splash,” he said seconds later as a fireball swelled across the screen.
The July 18 airstrike was delivered within 160 feet of the pinned-down troops from the Syrian Democratic Forces, according to Air Force officials. It thus marks an evolution in warfare.
American drone pilots now routinely launch missiles at what the Pentagon calls “danger-close” distances to U.S.-backed rebel ground forces fighting Islamic State in densely populated cities.
Hundreds of U.S special operations forces are deployed in Syria, and in some cases they direct airstrikes. But the danger-close missions also require approval from Syrian militia commanders because the missile blasts may put their ground troops at risk.
“Ideally you don’t want to accept that level of risk unless you have to,” said Col. Julian C. Cheater, commander at Creech Air Force Base, where most U.S. Predator and Reaper drone pilots are based. “But in an urban fight — like you’re now seeing in Raqqah — options might not be available to you.”
Over the last 20 years, unmanned aircraft were primarily used to collect intelligence or to launch Hellfire missiles at specific terrorist targets after extensive surveillance — enemy strongholds or targeted killings of suspects in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and elsewhere. READ MORE
