Carnage from the sky: Experts warn of new terrorist drone threat to U.S. after New Orleans

With New Year’s Day attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas exposing terrorism vulnerabilities anew, top security experts are warning that a lethal capability being perfected in the skies over Ukraine and the Middle East could soon be headed to the United States: explosives-dropping or gun-firing drones.

“There has not been enough preparation proactively to prevent an incident associated with drone warfare and not even close,” retired FBI Executive Assistant Director Christopher Piehota told Just the News on Thursday. “Government, I think, is waking up to it. But it's a day-late, dollar-short type of situation.

Piehota oversaw the FBI's counter-drone program before he retired.

"We're pretty far behind the defensive curve, so to speak. And unfortunately in the United States, it takes a tragedy for us to really snap out of our of our malaise and work against the threats proactively,” he warned.

Major vulnerability

Piehota’s concerns were echoed by security experts interviewed this week by Just the News in intelligence, military and law enforcement circles and specifically cited as a major vulnerability in a study prepared for the Homeland Security Department a few months ago by the security contractor Rand Corporation.

That report obtained by Just the News warned that terrorists are increasingly targeting soft targets in crowded places – known as "ST-CP"s in intelligence parlance – and that drones are likely to being employed to carry out attacks against such targets in the near future.

“Although it has generally not been observed as of this writing in late 2023, our interview data suggested a growing concern about the prospect of uncrewed aircraft systems (UASs) being used for attacks on ST-CPs,” the December 2023 report warned. “The use of UASs against ST-CP sites has become a concern in the ST-CP security sector. The unique characteristics of UASs could see their use grow in future years."

You can read the full report here.

Rand explained why drones – which are becoming more numerous – would be attractive to strike a target in America.

“UASs can carry explosive payloads and have the ability to maneuver into secure areas without detection,” it noted. “UASs can also give the operator the ability to act anonymously and a greater chance to avoid detection and capture. The growing use of UASs in both the private sector and government operations likely means that more people will have access to these systems in the future and the expertise to operate them, making the use of UASs for attacks increasingly likely.”

Even the United Nations – which has seen Iranian-built drones terrorize ships in the Red Sea, Hamas-operated drones kill Israelis during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacres and Russian drones inflict carnage in Ukraine – has escalated its preparation, conducting seminars in 2022 and 2023 to coordinate better security against such aerial attacks.

"There is a growing concern globally over the criminal misuse of emerging technologies as they become ubiquitous," the UN said after its most recent counterterrorism meeting. "Recent evidence demonstrates that the acquisition of UAS software, hardware, and components as well as their weaponization and deployment by terrorist groups has increased over the past years across many Member States.

"It is critical that Member States and intergovernmental organizations work closely with academia, civil society, and the private sector to keep abreast of technological advancements in order to anticipate and mitigate the risk of their misuse for terrorist purposes," it added.

"Caught off guard"

The Office of Director of National Intelligence admitted in a 2021 report that was recently declassified that it was acutely aware of the rising danger of terrorist drones and equally frustrated by slow U.S. efforts to recognize that a technology it devised to fight terrorists might now be used to hunt Americans.

“The United States has a history of being reactionary to unforeseen or misunderstood national security threats,” the report candidly noted. “Recently, the United States was caught off guard yet again by terrorist groups’ ability to adapt their tactics on the battlefield and cause bloodshed in new and surprising ways. These groups are infringing on a battlespace long dominated by the U.S. military: the air domain."

“The recent incorporation of unmanned aerial systems (UASs), commonly referred to as 'drones,' into the tactics and techniques of terrorist operations is forcing the United States to reassess its policies and defense measures to protect its employed military forces,” it added.

You can read that report here.

The Homeland Security Department says its research and development arm is trying to create new technologies to counter terrorism from the sky but admits its efforts face an uphill race.

“The rapid increase in the availability and sophistication of UAS represents a significant challenge, as their capabilities progress faster than the ability to assess and mitigate the threat posed by nefarious small UAS,” the department said.

Experts said countering aerial attacks requires knowing how to identify good from bad drones in the skies in real-time, something the government proved last month when unexplained drone sightings in New Jersey created widespread public panic and little official explanation.

“That's the problem, total unawareness by the American people and complete inability of law enforcement and the executives in these cities to evolve as fast as the terrorist tactics,” retired FBI Special Agent Jonathan Gilliam, who used to oversee major event planning for the bureau’s New York office, told the Just the News, No Noise television show on Thursday night.

 “The terrorists will do whatever they can to carry out these attacks. But these officials refuse to step outside their normal box and say, ‘OK, we don't normally do it this way, but let's try it.’ That’s not what they say. They say we don't do it that way. And so they never try something new and even inexpensive,” he added.

Gilliam said the Wednesday morning’s attack in New Orleans exposed the mentality anew: city officials had taken out their heavy metal security bollards protecting the French Quarter to repair them and replaced them with lesser barriers that the driver evaded with ease. He said police could have turned to “using busses, using dump trucks full of cement, police cars, whatever, to block areas and keep things straight” but didn’t.

Gilliam said he suspects terrorists who recently used vehicles to kill dozens in a German Christmas market and the French Quarter will continue to do so until security adapts, and then pivot to drones soon after.

“I believe these unmanned vehicle attacks and drone attacks are coming, but the vehicle attacks right now are the flavor of the day, because they're just so easy to carry out and people are just not aware,” he said.

Drones present heightened lethality

Piehota, the retired FBI executive assistant director, told the John Solomon Reports podcast that drones can cause far more lethal consequences than just the explosive payload they drop if they target a concert hall or stadium.

“If you have a stadium full of people, and even if the area is considered a no drone zone, you have someone fly in a group of drones, and they start dropping explosives, or they you could even set up drones to fire guns into a crowd. … the problem is going to be the massive disruption in a stadium.

“Most people will become very frightened. They will stampede and they will kill each other trying to get to a safe place,” he warned. Piehota further cautioned that while low-cost commercial drones are one potential threat, it is likely a terrorist group will one day soon acquire a highly lethal military grade drone from a state actor like Iran and deliver an even more devastating attack.

“What you're going to find is as certain international adversaries take a side, and they take a position, and certain military type equipment becomes available to certain terrorist groups, those military grade drones, you can't defeat them,” he said.

“They're made to loiter, and they're made to strike against heavy armored vehicles and against people who are in protective structures. So I just throw that out there, only because folks are more worried about the weaponization of commercial drones, as opposed to the appearance in the United States, potentially and probably, of military grade drones,” he added.