Colombia uses armed drones in the escalating fight against drug gangs

Bogotá, Colombia-in a cave-like hangar next to the international airport of Bogotá, military officers test a new weapon: a Colombian made drone That can bear up to 18 pounds of explosives.

“It is a tactical drone that is easy for troops to wear, apart from one that also has a lot of firepower,” says Colombian Air Force Colonel Andrés Talavera, who supervises the test flight.

The drone is the newest salvo in the fight of the government against guerrillas and drug dealers. But although unmanned aircraft of vital weapons have become in conflicts from Ukraine to the middle -east, Colombia is a late angle to run warfare.

Colombia’s conflict has been going on since the 1960s, but the violence has decreased in recent years. That was due to a Peace Convention from 2016 that the largest guerrilla -army of the country disarmed and ceases -fires with smaller criminal groups.

But in the past year, that auxiliary packages have collapsed.

Now, says Army General Juan Carlos Correa, the criminals use drones to control their drug crops and cocaine laboratories, to focus on rival smugglers and troops of the police and army. In the past two years, these groups have successfully attacked safety forces about 200 times with explosively charged drones.

“In one day they launched 17 attacks,” Correa told NPR.

The technology is cheap and available on a large scale. The drug traders buy commercial drones online for a thousand dollars or so subsequently attach homemade explosives to them.

Air Force Gen. Andrés Guzmán, he goes CiacThe company run by the state that produces the military drones of Colombia says that because the new technology is so cheap, it has yielded a huge boost for criminal groups.

“The conflict will always be a situation of David versus Goliath, but a drone can be the perfect solution for these groups when they confront the army, which has much more technology,” he said NPR.

But as often happens with unconventional weapons, citizens end in danger. Drones Jury-raised by criminals has damaged and killed houses children.

“The grenades are hand made by them,” said General Correa. “The targeting system is not very accurate. There was a 10-year-old child killed by one of these grenades in the middle of a city.”

Yet the criminals improve their goal. In the past two years, around 60 army troops have been injured in drone attacks while four have been killed. The last one was 20-year-old Edison GuerreroAn army Solider who was killed in May while he is on the patrol near the Venezuelan border.

The death of Guerrero was another blow to his family, who was uprooted and forced to move through the fighting. Noralba Rodríguez, the grieving sister of the soldier, reached NPR on the phone, NPR said: “This war makes no sense.”

To defend themselves, soldiers will often shoot wild on incoming drones. But that rarely works because the devices are so small and maneuverable. Colonel Talavera said that the only effective defense is an anti-drone system that consists of radars and jammers who block the frequency of enemy drones.

But it’s expensive. Colonel Talavera said the electronics to bring down a $ 2,000 drone can cost up to $ 15,000. What is more, buying the drones drug gangs from online retailers improve a much faster clip than the technology of the army to combat them.

Laura BonillaDeputy director of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, a Bogotá think tank, says that excessive bureaucracy for purchase and flying drones has impeded the army.

“There is too much bureaucracy. So it is really difficult for the armed forces to achieve the same capacity” as drug trafficking groups, she said. “The criminals do not need permits.”

To prevent him from falling back further – and having to rely on foreign suppliers – the Colombian government has produced its own drones. But it’s slow. While cash-rich drug traders can buy dozens of drones with a few clicks on a computer, the Army of Colombia appears to be only eight of the latest models of Drone per month.

When it comes to Colombia’s drone war, Bonilla says: “The criminals have the strategic advantage.”