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DRONE warfare, once the sole pursuit of the US military, is being democratised.

Islamic State (ISIS) has deployed consumer drones carrying grenades in the battle for the Iraqi city of Mosul, creating the most daunting problem US Special Operations Command troops faced in Iraq during 2016, according to their commander Raymond Thomas.

Groups around the world are taking advantage of the increasing accessibility of drone technology to build and deploy them as weapons (see “Home-grown drones“). And it’s not hard to imagine them being used in an attack in the West; the bomber responsible for the May attack on a concert in Manchester used parts purchased locally and may have been .

To combat the risks, the US government is looking for to hack and destroy drones on US soil. So do drones carrying bombs really represent a credible next step in the evolving terrorist threat? And are existing countermeasures effective, or should other countries follow in the US’s footsteps?

In theory, the idea of drone terrorism should be like that of tank terrorism – far beyond a terror cell’s capabilities. But while the US (along with its ally Israel) effectively held a monopoly on weaponised drones just five years ago, almost anyone can now build drones for combat, says at the University of Oxford – and their evolution is being accelerated by the rise of weapons start-ups in conflict zones.

At the vanguard of these efforts is Matrix UAV in Ukraine, which is working on a drone capable of firing anti-tank missiles. Operating from a decrepit Soviet-era building, the group’s offices are only slightly hidden away from the bustle of downtown Kiev. With a wingspan of roughly 1 metre, the drone isn’t slick like the Predator drone used by the US. But appearances are deceptive: it will be capable of taking out an armoured vehicle.

“Unlike just five years ago, almost anyone can now build and deploy drones for combat”

Flush with cash after an anonymous Ukrainian businessman invested in the group, Matrix UAV plans to have a working prototype test-firing the missiles within four months. CEO Yury Kasyanov, a former journalist and advertising executive, is hoping to export the drones to governments around the world for $100,000 each.

That’s extraordinarily cheap compared with the price of Western-made military combat drones, which range between $6 and $14 million. It’s made possible by a massive fall in the cost of consumer drones and cheap labour in Ukraine.

But if they can do it, so can others. In the hands of insurgents, a drone like this would offer the ability to sneak up on opposing forces and attack mechanised infantry, tanks, buildings and troops from the sky.

It would be a significant step up from the flying improvised explosive devices (IEDs) being used by ISIS in Iraq. As the Iraqi military began its push to take back ISIS-held Mosul last year, its troops were targeted by off-the-shelf drones with grenades strapped to them.

“Combatants weren’t expecting that they’d have small bombs from these small drones raining on their necks,” says Veli-Pekka Kivimäki, a Finnish military defence analyst.

Diversion tactics

Iraqi forces have now adopted the same tactic in retaliation (pictured, left and right).

Kivimäki believes these drones can play two significant roles on the battlefield. “The small drones have been used to eliminate key personnel, something that a sniper might do in an ordinary 20th-century army,” he says, video showing a drone dropping a grenade on a tank, killing a partially exposed solider. They are also used to create a diversion, such as dropping a grenade into a group of soldiers before a suicide bomber strikes in the confusion.

And now, according to Thomas ISIS is using drones in an “almost swarm level capability” – deploying multiple fliers to the battlefield that can act and move as one.

Although there is no evidence that ISIS is developing combat drones as ambitious as the one being built by Matrix UAV, even the small, home-made weaponised drones are difficult to defend against. So what can governments do?

On the battlefield, even basic drones are proving to be such a problem that militaries are going to absurd lengths to shoot them down. In March, the that a US ally had used a $3 million “Patriot” missile to shoot down a $200 quadcopter drone.

That’s why the hunt is on for an alternative take-down method. One possibility is the produced by Battelle, a military contractor based in Ohio.

The device has a range of 400 metres and looks like a rifle with a radio mast for a barrel. It was first spotted on the battlefield . It operates by shooting a directed radio pulse, disabling the operator’s control of the drone or disrupting its link to GPS satellites, causing it to fall out of the sky.

Since the first sighting, images of US troops and their allies armed with Drone Defenders have flooded onto social media. Franke says that there is now a rush to develop similar anti-drone systems, with about 10 per cent of R&D on military drone tech being pumped into countering them.

But these systems aren’t without problems, says Franke. “You can’t really use any of these in central London or at airports because they interfere with communications,” she says.

This explains the rise of strange alternatives, like training eagles to take out drones. However, eagles aren’t a much better option, according to one European military contractor who asked to remain anonymous.

“First of all, they’re expensive,” he says. “On top of that, they take forever to train, and you can’t use one to take out a swarm of drones. You’d need multiple eagles in that scenario. More importantly, ISIS has started using bigger drones that an eagle isn’t strong enough or fast enough to take out.”

Considering the complexity and ubiquity of the threat, it seems a smart move by the Trump administration to establish a set of laws by which the US government can rein in or destroy drones on US soil. According to a , the US government fears current surveillance and aviation laws could make such countermeasures illegal, hence the need for new legislation.

“The French air force is deploying eagles trained from birth to take out drones”

But as with all weapons and anti-weapons systems, it is an arms race, meaning we have to be prepared to counter an ever-evolving threat.

“In that regard, drones could eventually be used for assassinations,” says Franke. “For example, a couple of years ago, there was a picture of German Chancellor Angela Merkel sitting on a panel and the German Pirate party, an opponent, flew a drone right up to her. Now when I look at this picture, I just think of how easily a group like ISIS could do the same with a weaponised drone or flying IED.”

This article appeared in print under the headline “Terror from above”