Terrorists' Technological Innovation In Missiles And UAVs: Hamas, Hizballah And The Houthis

Dr. Joshua Sinai

Terrorist groups innovate technologically in their warfare when enabling strategic, operational, and tactical conditions are present. This has been the case with the Lebanese Hizballah, the Palestinian Hamas, and the Yemeni Houthis who have been among the first hybrid terrorist groups to massively employ sophisticated and lethal missiles and autonomous aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the warfare against their targeted countries, in this case, Israel. As a result, these technologically sophisticated military warfare capabilities have transformed the magnitude of their threats from a manageable ‘border menace’ to strategic threats against Israel.

Hamas’s surprise cross border attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, represented a transformative game-changer that in the event of a future conflict will require Israel to massively and preemptively retaliate against such missile firings. At least nine conditions are required for hybrid terrorist groups to innovate technologically to achieve such warfare capability against their

targeted country adversary:

First, a realization that previous tactics and weapons, such as attacks involving conventional weapons (e.g., firearms, IEDs, and vehicular rammings) are inadequate to cause the targeted adversary catastrophic harm and damage to coerce it to change course.

Second, an ambition to change a previous strategy, such as shootings and suicide bombings by individual operatives, by adopting more lethal weapons in their repertoire in order to inflict larger scale attacks against their targeted adversary without fear of retaliation, whether because the group is launching them from the heart of a civilian population that would make it difficult to retaliate against or because of lack of concern over their own civilian casualties.

Third, to take advantage of opportunities made available by new military warfare technologies, a critical factor in determining the success of a group's warfare escalation is its capability to absorb and deploy new technologies and weapons that become available. In the case of missiles, for example, a group's engineers would have to master sophisticated launching, timing, and detonator technology, delayed action and remotely detonated devices.

Fourth, state sponsorship, such as Iran, that promotes such new warfare tactics and technologies with equipment and training.

Fifth, a smuggling network to import the missiles, munitions, and their launching pads.

Sixth, a shift by the group from reliance on human intelligence to more technologically capable unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), that can transmit live video footage to scout potential targets that may have been previously inaccessible to human intelligence agents.

A related requirement is access to commercially available, high-resolution satellite photographs and open-source geographical imagery that are offered by companies such as GlobeXplorer and Google, in order to further enhance the missiles' targeting ability.

Seventh, a territorial safe-haven from which the missiles and UAVs can be launched.

About the Author

Dr. Joshua Sinai is Professor of Practice, Intelligence and Global Security Studies, at Capitol Technology University, Laurel, MD. He is the author of the best-selling “Active Shooter – A Handbook on Prevention” (ASIS International, June 2016 2nd Edition).

 

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