State of the Art Bang-Bang, Redux: UAV's Pummel Fallujah Terrorists

Awesome article. Turns out technology really can solve a lot of our problems:

The daytime optical camera on the Pioneer Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or UAV, yields rich colors, and so the quick red flashes from the mosque courtyard instantly caught the Marines' attention. The operation to seize back Fallujah was going well on the afternoon of Nov. 8. Seven battalions were advancing from the north, and the Pioneer was circling a four-square kilometer district to the south, called Queens. Long the lair of criminal gangs, terrorists, kidnappers, and jihadists, Queens was a jumble of a few thousand drab cement two-story houses and dirt roads, with scant vegetation.

Spotting insurgents was not a problem for "The Watchdogs"—Marine Air Wing unit VMU-1 that operated the Pioneer. Based in a tent next to a runway a few miles outside Fallujah, the Watchdogs had flown several hundred surveillance missions over the city during the past five months. The insurgents had no place to hide. When they came out of doors, they were seen, tracked, and attacked—day after day. Several times the Watchdogs had seen pickups suddenly swerve into empty lots, the occupants jumping out, setting up long tubes, firing a few rockets and scurrying off before a response attack could be launched.

"We followed one pickup after it fired some rockets," Staff Sgt. Francisco Tataje, the intelligence chief, said. "It swung up onto the main highway and we had it intercepted. The driver had a perfect ID. No incriminating stuff. We gave the interrogation team a copy of our video. They called back to say the guy confessed."

posted by Ace at 11:45 PM

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