Arafat’s New Terror Weapon: Exploding Toy Planes

DEBKAfiles ^ | January 14, 2003, 4:33 PM (GMT+02:00) | DEBKA files staff

[Cvengr]

Tuesday, January 14, the Palestinian Authority’s Al Ayyam daily published a message, approved by Yasser Arafat in the name of all the Palestinian groups, calling off attacks on Israeli citizens. This message, formulated by the Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, also endorses the continuing Palestinian struggle for a state whose capital is Jerusalem.

Gen. Suleiman was to submit this text to the London Middle East conference opened by British foreign secretary Jack Straw Tuesday night, January 14, in the presence of representatives from the Middle East Quartet, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

The Palestinians are there via a videolink after Israeli banned Palestinian travel in the wake of the massacre by Palestinian terrorists on January 5 of 23 people in Tel Aviv.

Israel was not invited by British PM Tony Blair.

The formal theme of the conference is Palestinian reforms. Since they are a dead letter, the Suleiman presentation turned up in time to give the forum some substance, although the Palestinian Authority daily Al Ayyam describes it as only conveying the sense of the agreed document – not its full content. After approving the Egyptian document, the delegates can go home satisfied that Yasser Arafat was persuaded to declare a ceasefire.

The Egyptians will also feel good, because they had a text to put before an international forum after shepherding Fatah, Hamas and Jihad Islami leaders through months of sporadic palaver in Cairo towards acceptance of a ceasefire. It does not matter that two participants in the Cairo dialogue are listed by the US government as dangerous terrorists: Abul Abbas, Head of the Arab Liberation Front, which together with the Fatah’s al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades wing, is preparing mega-terror attacks in Israel and the Middle East, and Khaled Mashal, who rules the Hamas from its Damascus headquarters and works closely with al Qaeda operatives in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

Abbas, safely returned to Baghdad, admitted Monday, January 13, that he had been in Cairo. He made himself scarce when he heard of a US approach to Egypt that could lead to his extradition for murdering an American citizen, Leon Klinghoffer, while hijacking the Achille Lauro on behalf of Fatah 17 years ago.

The Palestinian paper admits that the full text of the Suleiman document is being kept dark for fear it will break up the inter-Palestinian dialogue. Arafat is said to have approved, but not adopted it. None of the groups are even mentioned. Arafat’s ceasefire is therefore admittedly a smoke and mirrors exercise. All the groups - and Arafat in person - are described by DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources as being fully absorbed in pressing business of a completely different nature. The Palestinian leader’s daily routine, as revealed by our intelligence data, is particularly revealing.

He is fully occupied in arranging the funding and deployment of new weapons, tricks, ruses and devices for the coming cycle of terrorist operations, that bank heavily on the effectiveness of… a toy: Model planes packed with explosives and operated by remote control .

Last month, Palestinian toy importers in Jerusalem and Ramallah were told to order hundreds of these toys for distribution to Palestinian children in hospitals. Subsidies from European Union member-governments could legitimately be allocated to this humanitarian purpose.

The model airplanes were purchased in Europe and shipped quite openly to the Palestinian shopkeepers.

According to our sources, not a single toy reached an injured Palestinian child. The model planes were sent to Palestinian workshops for conversion into miniature air bombers with explosive payloads. Tanzim militiamen from Arafat’s Fatah, sent out to open areas near Jericho to test the new weapons, discovered they could fly to a distance of 1 kilometer and an altitude of 300 meters. The only problem was how to guide the plane to target inside an Israeli built-up area when it was no longer visible to the remote control holder. A small adjustment was made in the engine enabling him to cut it out from a distance, so that it dropped to the ground and blew up.

Contrary to reports that Arafat has withdrawn from the day-to-day management of Palestinian terrorist operations, DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources emphasize that the results of the model plane conversion tests were brought before him. Delighted with its performance, he ordered the new weapon to be used in the coming days in Jerusalem.

He chose Jerusalem, calculating that it would be some time before Israeli security and intelligence authorities caught on to and learned how to intercept the new mini-weapon whizzing around the city before it blew up. The deadly toy is easily launched from Arab Jerusalem. Its flying time is estimated at no more than 2-3 minutes.

The Palestinian terror master sought new devices because of the difficulties hampering the penetration of Israeli cities by his operatives in view of stepped up Israeli security, travel restrictions and Israeli intelligence agents planted in their ranks. Suicide bombers are deterred to a certain extent by the knowledge that their family homes will be demolished.

In addition to the mini-bombers, the Palestinians are trying out a whole arsenal of devices. They range from home-made rockets with a range of 15-20km and multiple rocket launchers - to exploding cigarettes and the kidnapping of former senior military officers, who as civilians are not guarded, in order to ransom Palestinian captives. Palestinian gunners will be trained to fire heavy machine guns from moving vehicles against low-flying airplanes or helicopters coming in to land.

All these projects have met with Arafat’s approval. They were authorized separately from the mega-terror campaign promised by the Lebanese Hizballah and al Qaeda.

The hidden agenda of the Palestinian groups reported at the London conference to have accepted a ceasefire is briefly outlined hereunder by DEBKAfile’s sources:

Fatah is divided into three camps:

1. The leader, Arafat , wants his campaign of violence to continue apace on both sides of the Green Line with the help of financial contributions from Iraq and Iran. As controller of revenues, Arafat calls the shots for all parts of his organization, including its suicide wing, the al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.

2. West Bank Fatah under Hussein al Sheikh would like to halt terrorist attacks inside Israel, confining them to civilian and military targets on the West Bank.

3. The al Aqsa Brigades ,commanded by Tawfiq Tirawi, is pressing for strikes to continue at full blast against Israelis everywhere, as well as Palestinian all-out support for Iraq against US attack.

Hamas similarly opposes any restrictions on the terror campaign against Israelis.

Jihad Islami, Popular Front, Arab Liberation Front, Front of Arab Struggle are all gearing up for a mega-terror attack against Israel.

These are the organizations that will receive pats on the back from the participants at the London “peace” conference.

[Bryan24]

Those of you who think this is undoable are mistaken.

I'm not defending DEBKAFiles because they have some pretty looney stuff. But I've been worried about this kind of weapon for some time.

I've seen models like this. Besides the tiny little one shown in that picture, I've seen a 1/4 scale cub with a wingspan of about 5 feet. And yes, it can carry 3-4 pounds of payload. EASILY.

I watched a guy fly a perfect replica of a twin engine Navy transport, Circa WWII or Korean War era. That plane, about 5 ft wingspan also, could fly at 70-80 mph and carry near a 5lb payload.

These planes can be guided nearly 1/2 a mile before the radios lose contact with the plane. All that needs to be done is get in a straight line of sight with the target and you can fly the plane right into a building.

Now I ask you guys, what would 3-4 lbs of Semtex going off next to or in a building do to it?

[ErnBatavia]

"Pull!"

[per loin]

This could be as dangerous as the Arab plot to secretly add a new letter to the Jewish alphabet.

[aruanan]

Well, you've heard the expression "Life imitates art."

[archy]

These planes have too small a payload to carry any useful explosives.

You've got to get out more.

[sd-joe]

Thanks for the pictures. They are neat. But they do not prove anything to me.

The helicopter is not carrying any weight, just those big but light training feet.

The first picture is interesting. What is under the wings? Remember my comment was about "usefull" explosives, in the context of a military attack. Just scaring people with big firecrackers would not do it.

[archy]

thanks for the pictures. They are neat. But they do not prove anything to me.

The helicopter is not carrying any weight, just those big but light training feet.

The first picture is interesting. What is under the wings.

I don't know. But it's a USMC photo of a Defense Advanced Research Agency project, so it could be either something noisy or snoopy. Of course the Composition B explosive filler charge of an M67 fragmentation grenade is only 6.6 ounces, and the weight of a M15 white phosphorous grenade is but 31 ounces.

Remember my comment was about "useful" explosives, in the content of a military attack. Just scaring people with big firecrackers would not do it.

During WWII, the British SAS fiound that their standard 8-pound demolition charge was a bit inconvenient for raiding parties going onto Afrika Corps airfields and leaving them on the aircraft. While that was acceptable for a single or double charge against a fuel storage tank, the presence of dozens of aircraft made such attacks by small groups impractical unless a smaller yet equally effective charge could be compounded. It was.

Sapper Jock Lewis came up with a pound-and-a-half demo charge that was both explosive and incendiary, powerful enough to rupture an aircraft's fuel tanks and ignite the fuel spread by the explosion. It was easy enough for a stealthy raider to carry a couple of dozen of the charges with timers, plant the things, then hopefully be on their way before the first signalled that the ball had begun.

Though the R/C aircraft-delivered devices described in the article could certainly be used in either that fashion or for use against POL storage tanks that have so far resisted several terrorist explosive attacks, the use of a grenade-sized warhead could also be used against a crowd at a synagogue or political event- a Likud rally, perhaps. Neither should the idea that one might be used as a follow-on *gotcha* attack following a suicide bomber event, in hopes of killing emergency rescue workers and ambulance personnel.

But I suspect that the real value of small R/C aircraft such as the one pictured will be to train rookie pilots, who'll then go on to operate larger remotely piloted aircraft. And I'd expect that fitting the 2-kilogram warhead of a PG-7 antitank rocket for the RPG-7 launcher could be done without too much difficulty to a slightly larger aircraft once the pilot had learned how to control a smaller one- which could make life difficult for both Merkava tank crews and officials in armoured limosines.

[Cvengr]

IMHO, the more significant aspect is simply promotion of asymmetric warfare using innovative low voltage, robotic and control devices during the age of the PC.

Toy planes are merely one aspect of that arena.

We live in a PC as a commodity society. If a tainted aspirin bottle terrorized the nation 20 years ago, imagine the variations on the 'I hate you' dollies which might proliferate in other microprocessor based devices.

A grenade on a toy plane flown into a building window will cause considerable blast damage. Boom boxes that really do go boom. Cell phones with sufficient charge to reach out and touch somebody. PC monitors that radiate more than believed. When dealing with an enemy with resources distributed throughout a global economy and active parties guided by Islamic extreme militarism, the threat could multiply quickly.

Perhaps the best tactic is for them to rehearse their suicide bombing missions on their homeland with live ordnance before they deploy.

[sd-joe]

Kool.
Thanks for the info.

[Monty22]

Why do they want Jerusalem? They have mecca. Go there scumbags.

[steve86]

The helicopter is not carrying any weight, just those big but light training feet.

Here is a new model R/C helicopter from Germany described as being able to lift an additional 4.4 lbs over the previous model. Mainly designed as a photo platform.

Note it uses an electric powerplant (a brushless DC motor). Recent advances in rechargeable batteries using lithium technologies have increased stored power densities considerably. Smaller electric helos are capable of 25+ minute flights, while doing aggressive, power-robbing maneuvers (this was recently demonstrated in an impressive video -- post me for details)...

The electric helos are very quiet with only the sound of the rotors and the gears audible. Easily drowned out in an urban environment.

I hope these things don't become restricted. They are great fun.

http://www.minicopter.de/en/maxi-joker.html

[sd-joe]

That is certainly an impressive helicopter. I think however, that it is starting to get out of the "toy plane" category of this article.

There is no question that radio controlled air frames of one kind or another have tremendous potential for the military. After all the Predator uses the same techniques.

I appreciate your input, but even this very high tech helicopter is very limited in military applications - they are talking of only a 5 to 10 minute flight time.

[gitmo]

Wouldn't it be simpler to launch mortars into Jerusalem? And certainly more destructive.

[Cvengr]

The significance of toy planes vs mortars is that mortars present a much more obvious signature as a military weapon when passing through a checkpoint or carried within a metropolitan area and would likely be confiscated. Toy planes though probably would be allowed but fairly indefensible as a terror weapon loaded with a grenade in a crowded area.