The United States Air Force has confirmed that the Beast of Kandahar drone is being used in Afghanistan, but what else is this drone doing?
How does it fit into President Obama's Afghanistan strategy? The unmanned aircraft is being used in Afghanistan where insurgents don't have radar systems, so what's going on?
Afghanistan is pretty well covered by US surveillance capabilities – aircraft, ground systems, other mechanisms, but Kandahar is not very far away from the Iranian border, says investigative journalist Wayne Madsen.
“It is the latest technology in unmanned aerial vehicles, and unlike other vehicles it can move in and out of the targeted country at very high speeds – and it obviously raised a few eyebrows when it was spotted in Kandahar,” Madsen said.
The RQ-170 Sentinel is being developed by Lockheed Martin and is designed "to provide reconnaissance and surveillance support to forward deployed combat forces," the air force said in a brief statement.
The "RQ" prefix for the aircraft indicates an unarmed drone, unlike the "MQ" designation used for Predator and Reaper aircraft equipped with missiles and precision-guided bombs.
Aviation experts dubbed the drone the "Beast of Kandahar" after photographs emerged earlier this year showing the mysterious aircraft in southern Afghanistan in 2007.
The image suggested a drone with a radar-evading stealth-like design, resembling a smaller version of a B-2 bomber.
source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091208/pl_afp/usaviationmilitarydrones_20091208212912
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