Cloak of Invisibility? Al-Qaeda adapting to avoid US drone attacks
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has produced a video to teach fighters how to avoid detection by US Predator drones by making them invisible to the spy planes with a Harry Potter-style cloak.
The 16-minute video, called ‘Combatting Spy Airplanes,’ is slapped together and makes use of US military public relations videos – many of which are on open display in the media – to make its point, the Washington Times reports.
The video explains that a homemade shield or cloak can stop a Predator’s infrared cameras from detecting a human’s heat signature.
The makings of the heat shield resemble craft-time in a primary school classroom. First of all, a body-sized tarpaulin is spread out on the floor and smeared with glue. Then some aluminum foil, which anyone can buy in a supermarket, is pressed on. Add more glue and another tarpaulin to make a kind of aluminum foil body burger.
“The aluminum is supposed to act like a heat barrier, keeping the fighter’s body heat from being detected by the drone camera system,” according to an analysis by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
Whether this aluminum sandwich actually works or not is unclear, but the idea is simple enough: if the drone can’t see you, then it can’t blow you to bits with one of its Hellfire missiles.