Armed-drone club growing thanks to China

WASHINGTON -- Early this month, a Nigeria military crew operating a Chinese-built drone struck a suspected terrorist base tied to Boko Haram in the county's remote Sambisa Forest. The strike on Feb. 2 marked Nigeria's first foray into drone warfare, making it the sixth country to use remotely piloted drones for targeted killing. The United States and and the United Kingdom fly U.S.-made armed MQ-1 Predators or MQ-9 Reapers, and Israel builds its own. But the three newcomers -- Nigeria, Pakistan and Iraq -- all took advantage of China's growing exports of the unmanned aircraft systems that are reshaping modern warfare. That worries some military analysts who see China as undermining U.S. attempts to control a technology that gives poorer countries a relatively inexpensive bombing system. China is "engaged in an ambitious effort" to sell drones in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, said Ian Easton, a research fellow at the Project 2049 Institute, which is based in Arlington, Va., and tracks security issues in Asia. A total of 78 countries now deploy surveillance drones. More than 20, including the six named above, either have or are developing armed drones, according to the New America Foundation, a nonprofit public policy institute in Washington that tracks the industry. The U.S. is by far the most prolific user of drones. Independent groups say more than 500 U.S. military and CIA drone strikes have killed about 3,800 militants, about 400 civilians and at least eight Americans, in seven countries over the last decade. Most U.S. military drone exports are limited by the Missile Technology Control Regime, a 1987 international accord meant to limit the spread of ballistic missiles. The State Department agreed in February 2015 to relax those Cold War-era restrictions. Each sale requires congressional approval under the foreign military sales program, and only two foreign sales -- Spain and Italy -- have gone through in recent months. David McKeeby, a spokesman for the State Department's bureau of political and military affairs, said the U.S. policy is to try to ensure future sales aren't high-risk. "Moving forward, the United States intends to work with foreign partners to develop international standards for the sale, transfer and use of military [drones] more broadly," he said. China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., a state-owned entity, has found a ready market for its medium-altitude, long-distance drones since 2011, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Sweden that documents the global arms trade. China has sold at least five armed CH-3 drones to Nigeria, four to Iraq and an unknown number of larger CH-4 drones to Pakistan, the institute says. The CH stands for "caihong," or "rainbow." The CH-3 is a stubby-looking plane with a 26-foot wingspan and a propeller in the back. The CH-4 appears to be a copy of the U.S.-made Reaper, with a bulbous nose, a 60-foot wingspan and a V-tail fin. "There is increasing demand around the world for this technology, and China is seizing on it," Pieter Wezeman, a researcher at the Stockholm institute, said in a telephone interview. "China does not have political restraints to sell arms. So when they see an opportunity, they will take it." The proliferation became obvious last year. On Sept. 6, Pakistani military spokesman Gen. Asim Bajwa announced on Twitter that the army had launched its first drone strike to kill three "high-profile terrorists" in North Waziristan, a tribal area in northwestern Pakistan. Three months later, on Dec. 6, the Iraqi military announced that it had used a Chinese CH-4 drone during its offensive to retake the city of Ramadi from Islamic State militants. The first sign of Nigeria's CH-3 drone fleet emerged in January last year when one crashed, and photos of the debris appeared online. The next was this month's airstrike against the Boko Haram camp in the forest. "We are not concerned about [Nigerian government forces] having this technology," said Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Falvo, spokesman for Pentagon's Africa Command, "as long as it is applied in a responsible manner and solely in an effort to better secure their borders against violent or illegal activities that disrupt stability or present a danger."