Boko Haram Is Back and With Better Drones | Hacker News Reader

Boko Haram Is Back and With Better Drones

nytimes.com

62 pointsbookofjoe15 comments

Interesting, that at the same time, Lagos[1], the biggest city on the African continent has one of the best growth potential[2][3]. I think it is a perfect time to open international companies branches or whole new startups. If you check[4] Crunchbase, you will find there are already 165 startups. Their legislation and policies are friendly to foreign capital, and you can open a bank account entirely online.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagos

[2] https://www.ft.com/content/ff0595e4-26de-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d5...

[3] https://thenationonlineng.net/imf-lagos-will-grow-4-136b-201...

[4] https://www.crunchbase.com/hub/lagos-startups

The attack yesterday on Saudi Arabia's major oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais, are another recent highlight of the shift in the long-feared threat potential that drones are starting to deliver on in actuality.

James Krane, Middle East Energy Specialist, Rice University: "The asymmetry of this is obvious. You have one of the world’s largest consumers of advanced weaponry basically defenseless in the face of drones that cost less than $1,000 and from a country that is so poor and disorganized it is undergoing a cholera epidemic and widespread starvation."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-aramco-fire-reactio...

Unfortunately long term this has the potential to backfire.

Yes, you get s surprise attack and cause asymmetric damage. If they continue doing this the Saudis (and any number of targets) are apt to respond overwhelmingly and decimate the source. They have the capacity to do so, it remains to be seen what they do in the face of this, if it were to continue.

What do you expect them to do, ask Saudi Arabia pretty please? They're fighting a war against a superior funded opponent. Half measures aren't going to win a war, they're going to be a slow loss. Go big or go home. They're going big. It might or might not work, but fighting a traditional sort of war is a 100% chance of losing.

> They have the capacity to do so, it remains to be seen what they do in the face of this, if it were to continue.

Haven't they already been doing that, targeting hospitals and civilian infrastructure in their offensive war? To draw a line back to this attack sounds like putting effect before cause.

The attack on Saudi Arabia was claimed by the Houthis which are funded and trained by Iran, and they have Iranian special forces embedded in their units as well. The Houthis are basically a professional military, more than most people realize. They are fighting a proxy war for Iran. The drones that attacked the Saudi oil plants were almost certainly not consumer drones carrying hand grenades, they were actual military drones provided by Iran.

The "asymmetry" that is mentioned is a great soundbite but isn't really accurate. The Houthis either control half or all of Yemen, depending on who you talk to. They aren't exactly pushovers. Compare that to Saudi Arabia, whose military is lazy and poorly trained. They rely on the US presence for security against real threats. Without the USA, they would almost certainly lose a fight against Iran. They are rich and have cool toys but it's laughable at how bad their training is.

To expand, the Houthis likely used drones like this with 60 lbs of explosive stuffed in it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Ababil. That's a far cry from the $1,000 drone that an academic from Rice University would have you believe.

“ They are fighting a proxy war for Iran. ”

People always think that people who are fighting on their home soil are fighting a proxy war for someone else but have no goals themselves . From what I have read they want to get rid of Saudi Arabia and Iran is helping them. But their main motivation is not Iran. It was the same in the Vietnam war. North Vietnam was supported by China and Russia but their main motivation was to get colonial powers out of the country.

They may have their own reasons for fighting, but all their money and equipment is provided by Iran. If not for Iran's support, the civil war in Yemen and further conflict with Saudi Arabia could not have happened. Iran provided their support because the Houthis are accomplishing Iran's goals. So this is Iran's war fought using someone else's sons.

The unification of North and South Yemen in 1990 was a mistake and there has been trouble ever since.

> The "asymmetry" that is mentioned is a great soundbite but isn't really accurate.

It is in fact accurate. Saudi Arabia is spending the third most money of any nation on earth on military. Three times that of Canada. More than France or Britain. More than Russia.

The Houthis have at best between 1/60th and 1/100th the military funding of Saudi Arabia. The point made by the quoted person is spot on in regards to the Houthis using cheap drones to hit Saudi Arabia's oil heart, de facto bypassing their massive military spending's ability to stop it. The definition of asymmetry fits perfectly given the radical imbalance between the two on military technology and spending, which is what was being directly stated in the quote (it also fits more broadly with the radical economic & funding potential imbalance between Saudi Arabia and the whole of Yemen, much less the Houthis).

For this mission a full set of drone capabilities is not needed. It is really a primitive cruise missile that can maintain altitude above terrain and find its way to the designated target. It doesn't need to send data home or be remotely controlled.

I wonder where they were launched from, since the Ababil doesn't have the range to get from Yemen to the target?

What a misleading title, there is almost no mention of drones in the article at all (the current HN title is the title of the article, so I don't fault OP). If you're looking for some discussion of military drones, here you go:

TBH, there are hobyists in the USA with better RC planes than the Nigerian military. The Nigerian Air Force doesn't operate any decent military drones such as the GA Predator or the Chengdu Wing Loon. Their biggest and best drone is the Israeli Aerostar and their domestic copy. It's tiny, has crappy sensors, and doesn't carry much payload. The Nigerian Army literally uses DJI Phantoms for some reconnaissance missions, which you can buy from Amazon.

Boko Haram is a fairly well funded branch of ISIS. They supplement their ISIS funding with kidnapping ransoms. They have captured military equipment from Syria and Iraq, some of which was pretty good compared to the other militaries in the Middle East and Africa. I don't know what drones they are using (the article sucks), but I wouldn't be surprised at all if they are better than what the Nigerian military has.

Daesh in Iraq and Syria are or were indeed well-funded and equipped, especially after they seized most of the reserves at the Mosul branch of the central bank. But I’m a bit confused as to how they’d manage to get substantial quantities of military equipment to Nigeria. I imagine it is at the very least rather difficult and expensive to do so, so they probably wouldn’t go round sending equipment willy-nilly.

At small scale (not a widespread conflict like traditional wars), there is a huge assymetry in power and attack x defense.

You can use small, cheap, or daily-use things to attack, and to protect yourself it's always necessary money, time and being paranoic.

You can't intercept a $500 drone with just a $500 drone.

This is very logical. Good point!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com