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Video shows ISIS using drones, time to include non-state actors in agreements on usage of armed drones?

Written by : TNM

The News Minute| August 25. 2014| 6.00 pm IST

A new video posted on an ISIS forum shows ISIS forces making preparations to attack a military base in Syria. But what’s worrying security experts more is that the video includes surveillance footage, probably taken by a drone. 

The caption reads: "From the drone of the army of the Islamic State."

Vocativ says the background audio has a militant talking about “a truck opening the way so that a second suicide bomber can hit the headquarters.”

The suspected use of a drone, maps and detailed plans for attacks shows that group is far more organised and trained, than just a army of rebels, notes Vocativ.

Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst and Emily Schneider, a research associate at the New America Foundation note in an editorial that, ‘technology that was once the monopoly of states is now being used by terrorist groups.’

Bergen and Schneider list the examples of Hezbollah and Hamas that have used drones in the recent past. The writers conclude that with technology proliferating, perhaps it is time for ‘some kind of international agreement that governs the use of armed drones by both states and "nonstate actors."

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