March 18, 2026: Islamic terrorists have increasingly been using drones not just to conduct carry out attacks, but also for resupply operations. This means fortified borders and patrolled roadways are obsolete across the Sahel, in Yemen, and elsewhere. Drones have evolved into a reliable airborne logistics system that can transport nearly a ton of explosives, electronic parts, munitions and vital materiel each week over hundreds of kilometers of hostile territory.

The ISGS/Islamic State in the Greater Sahara has spread terror and destruction throughout the Mali-Niger-Burkina Faso tri-border region in the Sahel. ISGS uses nightly relay chains of short-distance drones to ferry ammunition and roadside bomb components over desert terrain. Similar methods are used by the Houthi rebels of Yemen, and the TTP Islamic terrorists of Pakistan. This has not gone unnoticed.

For nearly a decade American troops, especially special operations forces, got some very practical, and fortunately not too lethal lessons about what it’s like to fight an enemy equipped with a lot of drones. The first thing American troops learned was that these small commercial drones and medium sized Iranian drones were difficult to deal with. The smaller ones, similar to the two kg U.S. Raven, are difficult to hit with gunfire or MANPADS shoulder fired missiles. Another downside of using missiles or machine-guns to take down drones is that those bullets and missiles eventually return to earth and often kill or injure civilians on the ground.

Electronic jamming, which most AUD Anti drone Defense systems employ with some success can easily be defeated by sending drones off on a pre-programmed mission. Nearly all drones have this capability. Used in this fashion a drone cannot be jammed and can take pictures and return very common or deliver a small explosive rare. ISIL\Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant was apparently the first to least successfully use armed micro-drones and for several years North Korea has been using small recon drones flying under automatic control into and out of South Korea. Criminal gangs have used small drones to smuggle drugs across tight borders or even into prisons.

Islamic terrorists and drug gangs can afford to buy lots of the smaller commercial drones but so far these users have been found vulnerable to decapitation, as in capturing or killing the leaders or drone experts. This turned out to be particularly true for Islamic terrorists in Syria and Iraq. By either taking GPS data off a downed one or using intelligence techniques, electronic and photo surveillance, interrogation of prisoners and tips from informants you can find the few locations where Islamic terrorists operated maintenance and training bases for their drones. Smart bombs or even a ground raid put enough of these out of action and that greatly reduced the incidence of enemy drone use.

Some nations, like South Korea and Israel have been dealing with this problem longer than the United States and have developed special weapons and tactics that involved more effective use of ground fire but have also relied on more sensor systems, especially new radars that can detect the smallest drones moving at any speed and altitude.

Since 2014 a growing number of AUDs have been designed and gone into testing and development. In 2016 and 2017 many were sent to Iraq and Syria for use against the growing number of commercial drones ISIL was employing for surveillance or combat when rigged to drop small explosive devices that have caused several dozen casualties.

One of the first AUDs, developed by a British firm Blighter, was delivered to U.S. troops in combat zones for use and, in effect, to see if it works as well in combat as it did, during extensive testing against 60 different drones during 1,500 test sorties. The Blighter AUDs can be placed on rooftops or any other high terrain or carried in a truck or hummer. It can detect drones 10 kilometers away and identify and disable drones in less than 15 seconds. This is done by either jamming or taking over the control signal and landing the drone. Separately an Israeli firm has sold AUDs to the U.S. military for use in the Middle East. None of these AUDs were a complete solution and they were expensive, $743,000 each, mainly because they were light enough for ground troops to carry in a backpack. But these systems were found ineffective for widespread use. The problem was that the Islamic terrorists had access to effective online advice from fans who had drone experience usually from living in the West and often helped develop effective methods for counteracting AUDs.

The number of new anti-drone weapons showing up indicates that the countries with larger defense budgets see a need for this sort of thing and are willing to pay for a solution. These more sophisticated AUDs are safer for nearby civilians to use because they rely on lasers or electronic signals to destroy or disable drones. For example the CLWS Compact Laser Weapon System is a laser weapon light enough to mount on helicopters or hummers and can destroy small drones up to 2,000 meters away while it can disable or destroy the sensors vidcams on a drone up to 7,000 meters away. The CLWS fire control system will automatically track and keep the laser firing on a selected target. It can take up to 15 seconds of laser fire to bring down a drone or destroy its camera. Another example is an even more portable system that can be carried and operated by one person: DroneDefender. This system is a 6.8 kg 15 pound electronic rifle that can disrupt control signals for a small drone. Range is only a few hundred meters so DroneDefender would be most useful to police.

There is also a high-end system similar to DroneDefender that can use data from multiple sensors as in visual, heat, and radar to detect the small drones and then use a focused radio signal jammer to cut the drone off from its controller and prevent, in most cases, the drone from completing its mission. The detection range of this AUDS is usually 10 kilometers or more and the jamming range varies from a few kilometers to about eight.

The problem is the enemy can use their drones at any time and just about anywhere. No one has come up with an AUD cheap enough and portable enough to deal with this. Decapitation is one technique that works but only after the enemy drones have become a serious problem. As always, simple, safe and affordable solutions are always in short supply.