When security forces in Puntland, Somalia, raided a vehicle convoy traveling south from Garowe, they confiscated a collection of drones capable of delivering explosives. The devices were similar to those used by Houthi rebels across the Red Sea in Yemen.
So-called kamikaze drones are, in essence, flying improvised explosive devices (IEDs). They are typically low-cost, commercially available quadcopters capable of carrying a single explosive — often a mortar shell — that can be either dropped on a target or flown directly into it. Their presence in Somalia has raised the fear of expanded drone use by terrorist groups. Until recently, the groups have used drones primarily for surveillance and for making propaganda videos.
“While still limited in comparison to other regions, there is increasing evidence of several groups seeking to weaponize commercially available drones to launch attacks in different countries in Africa,” Bárbara Morais Figueiredo, a researcher with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, told ADF in an email.
The capture of the five weaponized drones in Puntland suggests African extremist groups are learning from their Middle East counterparts how to develop the technology, often through online or social media channels controlled by the Islamic State group (IS) or al-Qaida, according to Morais Figueiredo.
“Indeed, many of the groups known for using drones in Africa have ties to groups known for using drones in other regions, especially the Middle East, with ISIL [IS] as a prominent example,” she said.
IS-aligned groups have recommended smartphone-based flight simulator apps that teach users how to fly quadcopter drones. Although much of the knowledge transfer has been indirect, growing instability in the Horn of Africa and Sahel is inviting more direct contact between Africa-based terror groups and foreign fighters more adept at using drones as tactical weapons.
“As some of these groups continue to grow and expand, especially in the central Sahel, the region’s attractiveness as a destination for foreign fighters could further increase,” Morais Figueiredo said.
There is evidence that terrorist groups, like the militaries they are fighting, could develop their own specialized units dedicated solely to operating drones, she added.
“This certainly remains a possibility or potential trend to be monitored, as it would have an important impact both on the scope and number of attacks these groups are able to carry out with drones,” Morais Figueiredo said.
In the process, the expanding use of drones is giving terror groups a psychological advantage they didn’t have before, researcher Karen Allen with South Africa’s Institute for Security Studies (ISS) told Voice of America. “It has leveled the playing field between regular forces and irregular forces,” Allen said.
CHANGING TECHNOLOGY, CHANGING USE
Drone technology has grown exponentially since Boko Haram became the first African terror group to use it in 2018, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute. The institute has tracked drone use across the Middle East, North Africa and West Africa since 2017. “More jihadi groups have gained access to drone technology, and those examined in 2017 have improved upon existing technology and increased its use,” institute researchers wrote in 2023.
In 2018, Boko Haram used drones for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). Drones’ small profile and sophisticated cameras made them ideal for spying on military and security forces or for surveilling civilian targets. They worked well for making videos of battles that could be published on social media later as recruitment tools.
Boko Haram quickly became the model for other extremist groups. In 2020, Mozambique’s Ansar al-Sunna began using drones to identify targets in Cabo Delgado province while Ahlu-Sunnah wal Ja’maa employed them in Moçimboa de Praia. Al-Shabaab soon followed suit, using drones to help plan attacks in Somalia and Kenya.
At the time, drones were hard to come by, so using them for ISR was preferable to deploying them as weapons platforms or in kamikaze attacks, according to analysts Keaton O.K. Bunker and John P. Sullivan.
“Drones used for ISR can be reused as long as they do not get destroyed by enemy action. Fully weaponized drones are much more likely to get destroyed by opposition forces,” Bunker and Sullivan wrote in Small Weapons Journal. “Further, ISR use helps to facilitate terrorist operations whereas single-use drone attacks have a much more minimal impact on terrorist operations as a ‘one off’ event.”
That philosophy began to shift in 2022 and 2023 when Boko Haram’s rival, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), began experimenting with using drones to deliver explosive payloads in the Lake Chad Basin.
ISWAP’s interest in weaponized drones has grown out of its need to overcome losses of territory and fighters to the Nigerian military and Boko Haram, according to ISS researcher Malik Samuel. “These setbacks may be forcing ISWAP to adapt its strategy, as it has done before,” Samuel wrote.
Meanwhile, as the Puntland convoy suggests, other terrorist groups are rapidly adopting drones as their weapons of choice. In April 2024, al-Qaida’s Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin affiliate in Mali used commercially available quadcopters armed with hand grenades and mortar rounds to raid the camp of a government-allied dozo militia.
‘PHENOMENAL CHANGE’
As commercially available drones become more common, governments across Africa are losing an advantage they once enjoyed. A drone-based arms race has equipped both sides with low-cost, highly effective air support.
Although governments’ equipment may be more sophisticated — the popular Turkish-made Bayraktar drones are one example — terrorist groups’ access to technology enables them to intimidate civilians and harass militaries with drones that are low-flying and hard to shoot down. With the addition of artificial intelligence, those same drones can operate independently or in swarms.
“They can come at any time, at any place, at incredibly high speeds, and you have no control,” Lindy Heinecken, a professor at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University, told an audience at the African Aerospace and Defence trade show. “You may have air defenses, but you don’t know where they will come in. It represents a phenomenal change in the nature of warfare.”
The fact that commercial drones are, essentially, a civilian tool further complicates efforts to regulate them, according to Allen. She describes them as dual-use technology, comparable to mobile phones, which can be used to make calls but also to trigger roadside bombs. For that reason, Allen suggests, commercial drones might qualify for restrictions under the international Wassenaar Arrangement, designed to control the export of dual-use technology.
Heinecken spelled out a more fundamental challenge governments face when countering terrorist drones: “Anybody can weaponize a drone,” she said. “We are now literally living in the time of liquid warfare.”
As African nations continue to fight terrorist groups, they must add antidrone technology to their arsenals, according to Allen. That could include signal jammers, which disrupt the radio link between drones and their operators, and high-energy lasers that can knock drones out of the sky by melting them in flight.
Staying ahead of rapidly advancing drone technology and the groups that use it will keep African governments on their toes moving forward, according to Morais Figueiredo.
“All in all, as drone technology becomes more affordable and continues to evolve and spread at a rapid pace in Africa, these trends are likely to further accelerate in coming years,” Morais Figueiredo told ADF. “We are, therefore, likely to see more groups using drones more frequently and in increasingly diverse and sophisticated ways across the continent.”