Remote control truck with remote control gun, self destructed after attack(twitter.com)
twitter.com
Remote control truck with remote control gun, self destructed after attack
https://twitter.com/l4stewar/status/1333094707954651137
82 コメント
The real question is, why would they lie about this? I don't believe the remote control truck story. It seems unlikely that a remote control pick up truck by itself would be able to take on an armored convoy. Perhaps the attackers escaped and Iran doesn't want the egg on its face of letting multiple attackers escape. That being said, I'm not sure that having a single jerryrigged remote control truck take out one of your most highly protected individuals is much better...
Because some super high tech attack doesn’t look as bad as the little/big satan being able to put in half a dozen assets into play in your country and take out one of your highest value assets and get away with it.
Your comment makes me think of the worst conspiracy theory possible: what if Israel and Iran were both involved in this killing? Or maybe some Iranians did it?
They have the motive and this is just as plausible as the absurd high tech idea being floated. Both Israel and Iran benefit from increased tension before the new administration is in office...
They have the motive and this is just as plausible as the absurd high tech idea being floated. Both Israel and Iran benefit from increased tension before the new administration is in office...
Some Iranians were definitely involved since who ever did it had to use at least some local assets.
Could the Iranian state be responsible for this? Possibly but not particularly likely, could it been an internal conflict within the IRGC or between the IRGC and the local criminal underground (yes this is a thing, the IRGC often supplements it’s income by running criminal enterprises in the region) a bit more likely but still less likely than a combined western effort to take him out.
I don’t think Israel could or well would pull this off alone, by all accounts whilst Israel does operate a very large humint network in Iran much larger than the US ever managed to set up (in fact by published accounts, Israel is the one who’ve always provided the human element in joint operations) they still heavily rely on US intelligence and operational support.
Before JCPOA was signed the “rumor” was that one of the sticks and or plan B was a pretty extensive plan to take out quite a few very high value Iranian targets of the map and that plan didn’t include buildings but rather was a direct threat to essentially take out anyone of any importance especially in the IRGC.
This seems to be the second and quite likely last at least for a while (due to the US elections result) operational use of that “backup plan”.
As far as conspiracies go or at least corruption I would put KSA pressuring Trump to do something before he leaves office in exchange for financial favors over anything else.
Could the Iranian state be responsible for this? Possibly but not particularly likely, could it been an internal conflict within the IRGC or between the IRGC and the local criminal underground (yes this is a thing, the IRGC often supplements it’s income by running criminal enterprises in the region) a bit more likely but still less likely than a combined western effort to take him out.
I don’t think Israel could or well would pull this off alone, by all accounts whilst Israel does operate a very large humint network in Iran much larger than the US ever managed to set up (in fact by published accounts, Israel is the one who’ve always provided the human element in joint operations) they still heavily rely on US intelligence and operational support.
Before JCPOA was signed the “rumor” was that one of the sticks and or plan B was a pretty extensive plan to take out quite a few very high value Iranian targets of the map and that plan didn’t include buildings but rather was a direct threat to essentially take out anyone of any importance especially in the IRGC.
This seems to be the second and quite likely last at least for a while (due to the US elections result) operational use of that “backup plan”.
As far as conspiracies go or at least corruption I would put KSA pressuring Trump to do something before he leaves office in exchange for financial favors over anything else.
Yeah, the 100% remote control idea seems unlikely, just provides cover for Iranian leadership when they fail to find the assassins.
This is a more thorough and believable report: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8997575/Assassinati...
(However, that site is a nightmare of ads, popups and auto-playing video, only legible with uMatrix.)
This is a more thorough and believable report: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8997575/Assassinati...
(However, that site is a nightmare of ads, popups and auto-playing video, only legible with uMatrix.)
Never in my life did I imagine I'd come across a Daily Mail article labelled as a "thorough and believable report". It's half banned as a source on Wikipedia for crying out loud
1) Daily Mail is shit
2) Daily Mail article is more thorough and believable than a tweet sourced to IRGC propaganda
Both statements can be true.
2) Daily Mail article is more thorough and believable than a tweet sourced to IRGC propaganda
Both statements can be true.
The Daily Mail publishes a lot of articles by contributing journalists, Harriet Alexander is actually a pretty good journalist https://twitter.com/h_alexander
Well, completeness and superficial verisimilitude is proobably easier when you can just invent a story based on what people are likely to find believable with as much detail as you want because you don't have any journalistic standards.
(However, that site is a nightmare of ads, popups and auto-playing video, only legible with uMatrix.)
It's also legible, I'd even call it pleasant, with Firefox plus NoScript. Many sites block or degrade images when JS is disabled, but not the Daily Mail.
It's also legible, I'd even call it pleasant, with Firefox plus NoScript. Many sites block or degrade images when JS is disabled, but not the Daily Mail.
> The real question is, why would they lie about this?
Because a public story completely unconnected with the facts give your adversaries no information about what you've actually worked about the attack.
Why would you use that particular story may be a harder question, but a robot attacker might have a better propaganda look than something revealing, say, betrayal by agents within highly-trusted security services.
Because a public story completely unconnected with the facts give your adversaries no information about what you've actually worked about the attack.
Why would you use that particular story may be a harder question, but a robot attacker might have a better propaganda look than something revealing, say, betrayal by agents within highly-trusted security services.
The scenario as described has many similarities with the movie 'The Jackal'. Also it says that the victim got out of the car after a distraction, even though he was traveling in a bulletproof car with an armed escort.
This is a very rookie mistake for a senior official who was in enough of a threat to travel around with an escort of armed guards!
I 'd be very hesitant to believe that story without independent confirmation from other sources.
P.S. Some twitter replies, on the original twitter thread [0] even questioned the validity of the source but I don't know enough about it (Fars news) to evaluate those claims. Putting this out here for the HN crowd to weigh in.
[0]: https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1333080696282288128
This is a very rookie mistake for a senior official who was in enough of a threat to travel around with an escort of armed guards!
I 'd be very hesitant to believe that story without independent confirmation from other sources.
P.S. Some twitter replies, on the original twitter thread [0] even questioned the validity of the source but I don't know enough about it (Fars news) to evaluate those claims. Putting this out here for the HN crowd to weigh in.
[0]: https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1333080696282288128
Yeah it’s seems to be too complicated, and intelligence agencies don’t like complicated.
Assassinations are hard as it is to pull off especially in a country like Iran which is essentially a police state where every westerner and worse an Iranian that can freely travel abroad is likely under close surveillance.
This operation would require you not only to bring in assets but also tech.
Even if this was somehow could rigged with items you can find at “radio shack” there is no way that this would’ve passed any risk assessment too many things can go wrong.
It’s by far easier to use local assets from one of the resistance groups still active in Iran or even hired guns from a criminal organization.
Assassinations are hard as it is to pull off especially in a country like Iran which is essentially a police state where every westerner and worse an Iranian that can freely travel abroad is likely under close surveillance.
This operation would require you not only to bring in assets but also tech.
Even if this was somehow could rigged with items you can find at “radio shack” there is no way that this would’ve passed any risk assessment too many things can go wrong.
It’s by far easier to use local assets from one of the resistance groups still active in Iran or even hired guns from a criminal organization.
Complicated?
US intelligence agencies love extremely complicated scenarios, plausible deniability is a feature not a bug.
One example.... STUXNET
The amount of time, skill and manpower it took to pull that off.
US intelligence agencies love extremely complicated scenarios, plausible deniability is a feature not a bug.
One example.... STUXNET
The amount of time, skill and manpower it took to pull that off.
I've already explained why STUXNET isn't complicated rather exactly the kind of perfected simplicity that intelligence agencies will employ.
It was low to no risk, and potentially high reward sabotage op that could essentially be entirely developed and run without risking any assets or even sources. The technical complexity of the malware is irrelevant (and even that wasn't that complex, it was just flawless) were talking about the complexity of the op itself.
This op took no less skill and manpower, heck it likely took quite a bit more.
It was low to no risk, and potentially high reward sabotage op that could essentially be entirely developed and run without risking any assets or even sources. The technical complexity of the malware is irrelevant (and even that wasn't that complex, it was just flawless) were talking about the complexity of the op itself.
This op took no less skill and manpower, heck it likely took quite a bit more.
It's less complicated however than to get 12 assassins out of the country without trace after such a messy kill.
It’s not since you’ll still need to get people into the country and quite likely people with less field experience.
Not to mention that to pull anything like this off you already need to have an extensive network of assets in place.
There are plenty of local resources you’ll be able to use ranging from local opposition groups to hired criminals from Iran and the Caspian region heck getting some offshoot of the Syrian opposition to lend a hand after Iran helped Assad isn’t out of the realm of possibility either.
You assume this was some SEAL Team Six operation, the fact that as many as 12 people opened fire indicates it quite likely wasn’t and the assets who performed the assault itself were quite likely less trained and much more expendable.
Not to mention that to pull anything like this off you already need to have an extensive network of assets in place.
There are plenty of local resources you’ll be able to use ranging from local opposition groups to hired criminals from Iran and the Caspian region heck getting some offshoot of the Syrian opposition to lend a hand after Iran helped Assad isn’t out of the realm of possibility either.
You assume this was some SEAL Team Six operation, the fact that as many as 12 people opened fire indicates it quite likely wasn’t and the assets who performed the assault itself were quite likely less trained and much more expendable.
Simpler than Stuxnet
No it's not, Stuxnet was chosen as a path to mitigate the risks of a kinetic attack, as it that can't really escalate to an all out war whilst bombing nuclear plant can.
This doesn't mitigates any risks but introduces new points of failure.
You still need to get personnel into the country, and now it needs to be technical specialists that may not be as field experienced so now you also need an additional force protection element.
You need to smuggle in or secure more sophisticated technical assets which increases the likelihood of capture/discovery.
You need a longer staging period to manufacture, assemble and test this contraption which again means you are more likely to get captured.
You need to move that thing into place, secure a location close to the action from which you can operate, ensure that no one would discover the parked vehicle as this isn't James Bond and a remote weapons station is much harder to hide in the cabin than a bomb that can be easily placed in the trunk or the side panels of the door.
You need to be sure that no jamming would be put into place (cell and radio jamming is employed especially for VIP force protection to reduce the risk of IEDs) once the action starts or prior to it, and you need to be sure that your radio transmissions won't be intercepted, and we know for a fact that Iran monitors radio transmissions in an attempt to discover cells of foreign operatives because as they've already claimed to capture operatives using this technique.
And you still have the chance of this thing failing completely or partially, which means you either need to be confident enough in being able to take that target out again which in this case is highly unlikely (I'm pretty sure half of his security detail and staff are hanging from their ankles being tortured right now to find out who may have leaked any info about his whereabouts and daily routine) or have a team on standby to finish the job (which makes your A-Team contraption redundant).
Contrast this with Stuxnet.
Stuxnet can be developed, tested and fully validated anywhere in the world by simply building a similar environment.
While it can fail the failure poses no risk to personnel or to your forces, in fact the sooner it fails the more likely it could look like just another virus, Remember Iran didn't even find it out Russian, Finnish, and American cyber-security companies found it by investigating secondary infections.
It can be relatively easily inserted by employing social engineering, having a single asset on site or by the more likely scenario compromising one of the foreign 3rd parties that were providing some services to the Iranian nuclear program (e.g. that Ukrainian engineering consulting firm that is suspected to be the source of at least some of the infections) .
The malware itself wasn't nearly as complicated as you think, it was rather simple just nearly perfectly executed with very strong indication of the kind of operational methodologies western intelligence agencies employ.
This doesn't mitigates any risks but introduces new points of failure.
You still need to get personnel into the country, and now it needs to be technical specialists that may not be as field experienced so now you also need an additional force protection element.
You need to smuggle in or secure more sophisticated technical assets which increases the likelihood of capture/discovery.
You need a longer staging period to manufacture, assemble and test this contraption which again means you are more likely to get captured.
You need to move that thing into place, secure a location close to the action from which you can operate, ensure that no one would discover the parked vehicle as this isn't James Bond and a remote weapons station is much harder to hide in the cabin than a bomb that can be easily placed in the trunk or the side panels of the door.
You need to be sure that no jamming would be put into place (cell and radio jamming is employed especially for VIP force protection to reduce the risk of IEDs) once the action starts or prior to it, and you need to be sure that your radio transmissions won't be intercepted, and we know for a fact that Iran monitors radio transmissions in an attempt to discover cells of foreign operatives because as they've already claimed to capture operatives using this technique.
And you still have the chance of this thing failing completely or partially, which means you either need to be confident enough in being able to take that target out again which in this case is highly unlikely (I'm pretty sure half of his security detail and staff are hanging from their ankles being tortured right now to find out who may have leaked any info about his whereabouts and daily routine) or have a team on standby to finish the job (which makes your A-Team contraption redundant).
Contrast this with Stuxnet.
Stuxnet can be developed, tested and fully validated anywhere in the world by simply building a similar environment.
While it can fail the failure poses no risk to personnel or to your forces, in fact the sooner it fails the more likely it could look like just another virus, Remember Iran didn't even find it out Russian, Finnish, and American cyber-security companies found it by investigating secondary infections.
It can be relatively easily inserted by employing social engineering, having a single asset on site or by the more likely scenario compromising one of the foreign 3rd parties that were providing some services to the Iranian nuclear program (e.g. that Ukrainian engineering consulting firm that is suspected to be the source of at least some of the infections) .
The malware itself wasn't nearly as complicated as you think, it was rather simple just nearly perfectly executed with very strong indication of the kind of operational methodologies western intelligence agencies employ.
Original tweet thread:
https://mobile.twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/133308069628228...
https://mobile.twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/133308069628228...
On a purely technical level, it's nothing very difficult, a video feed and a bunch of I/O to control the truck (either with linear actuator for steering / braking, throttle control is trivial to do electronically). Same for the gun control, a two axis mount for aiming, fire control can be done with motor and actuating a cam mechanism, and add another video feed for aiming.
I'm only surprised it's not done more...
I'm only surprised it's not done more...
I'm surprised we haven't seen this with $200 drones and a single shot gun attached, either 3D printed or otherwise DIY. Regardless of the level of security surrounding anyone other than maybe the president it seems anyone would be pretty susceptible to this and the odds of it getting traced back to someone who bought the device with cash and was careful to not touch it or leave DNA would be pretty small
Because these things aren’t reliable enough.
Operations like this take years to plan and you often get only one shot.
This also means that this story is quite likely fiction.
Operations like this take years to plan and you often get only one shot.
This also means that this story is quite likely fiction.
Have you seen people doing drone racing? I think this would be pretty easy for them, and even if it's not reliable you're out $200 and some DIY time. Even if it takes 5 attempts, $1000 is cheap as hell to assassinate someone
That’s not the point.
The cost of assassinations on this level is in the prep work.
It takes very large amounts of money, skill and time to develop and run an intelligence network capable of pulling something like this off.
As counter intuitive as it seems these organizations are extremely risk averse because to them risks means years of work down the drain, opportunities lost and often for good and quite likely dead assets and or agents.
A $200 or even a $2000 drone doesn’t minimizes these risks it introduces additional ones.
Killing someone in a hail of bullets is easy and reliable, using a toy with a small explosive attached to it isn’t.
It takes very large amounts of money, skill and time to develop and run an intelligence network capable of pulling something like this off.
As counter intuitive as it seems these organizations are extremely risk averse because to them risks means years of work down the drain, opportunities lost and often for good and quite likely dead assets and or agents.
A $200 or even a $2000 drone doesn’t minimizes these risks it introduces additional ones.
Killing someone in a hail of bullets is easy and reliable, using a toy with a small explosive attached to it isn’t.
I'm not talking about coordinated organizational assassinations. I am talking about lone wolf extremists that want to murder someone who maybe isn't even that high profile in the national stage. I could rig up something like this in a single day and could probably practice flying casually in the evenings to become proficient enough. It's a really low barrier of entry for anyone technically savvy and violent enough
Disclaimer: all hypotheticals, I don't advocate violence, I would never do this even for hypothetical purposes
Disclaimer: all hypotheticals, I don't advocate violence, I would never do this even for hypothetical purposes
A gun has even a lower barrier of entry if you want to kill someone, and kitchen knives even lower.
Small drones can’t cary a lot of payload getting your hands on high explosives that would actually do enough damage isn’t easy, rigging this up in a safe manner isn’t as easy as you think either.
Like I’m not saying you should try to do this to prove a point but you have much higher chances of blowing yourself up or even more likely be arrested prior than you think.
Small drones can’t cary a lot of payload getting your hands on high explosives that would actually do enough damage isn’t easy, rigging this up in a safe manner isn’t as easy as you think either.
Like I’m not saying you should try to do this to prove a point but you have much higher chances of blowing yourself up or even more likely be arrested prior than you think.
Use a remote control drone airship and drop 25-50 guidable mini bombs to hit the target in a dispersion pattern with a concentrated center. Small radar footprint, quiet operation, large destruction area.
Have backup gunman to mop up if needed, likely same pointing illuminator at target.
Not what happened but easy enough.
Have backup gunman to mop up if needed, likely same pointing illuminator at target.
Not what happened but easy enough.
I don’t think you realize just how ridiculous what you proposing is...
Might as well call a B-52 to carpet bomb the place.
You aren’t getting an airship and a few dozens of drones into a country like Iran.
Might as well call a B-52 to carpet bomb the place.
You aren’t getting an airship and a few dozens of drones into a country like Iran.
Nonsense, that plan worked perfectly in Call of Duty 4.
That would only cover the delivery method, no the payload, but this is very much of a covert way to assassinate someone. Killing people is easy, the biggest shortcoming is that terrorist are trying to be as visible as possible. This is the same shortcoming seen is so many Hollywood movie... when you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk.
I suspect the chances of actually hitting a target would be very low, if the weapon was rigidly mounted to the drone?
Although if a grenade was used rather than a firearm, it could be worryingly effective.
Then again, RC aircraft have been around for many decades, and haven't become the terrorist or criminal's tool of choice. Even flying with a first-person view isn't particularly new, here's a video about a hobbyist doing it in the 80s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5_gPhT61ek
Although if a grenade was used rather than a firearm, it could be worryingly effective.
Then again, RC aircraft have been around for many decades, and haven't become the terrorist or criminal's tool of choice. Even flying with a first-person view isn't particularly new, here's a video about a hobbyist doing it in the 80s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5_gPhT61ek
Terrorists want to cause terror and are unlikely to carry "surgical" assassination.
Or a small swarm of like 25 high speed drones that just dive bomb the target and explode on contact. It’s like poor man’s cruise missile.
How are you going to get your video feed out of the country remotely, and get the control signals into the country?
It's not trivial at all. It's trivial-ish if you're operating over a custom data link from a nearby location.
The more remote the operator, the bigger the lag and the bigger the threat of signal loss.
And you can't rely on the Internet because of lag and potential packet loss or congestion.
It's hard enough to get everyone on the same screen in a Zoom meeting. Driving a car remotely and shooting at people over a patchy mobile data link is a whole other level of complexity.
It's not trivial at all. It's trivial-ish if you're operating over a custom data link from a nearby location.
The more remote the operator, the bigger the lag and the bigger the threat of signal loss.
And you can't rely on the Internet because of lag and potential packet loss or congestion.
It's hard enough to get everyone on the same screen in a Zoom meeting. Driving a car remotely and shooting at people over a patchy mobile data link is a whole other level of complexity.
Zoom meetings carry HD video, generally both upstream and downstream. You hardly need 1080p 30pfs at a high bitrate to aim through crosshairs. You can totally split the feed to a low-resolution wide field of view (FOV) feed, then crop your feed to a low FOV once the target is acquired to enhanced apparent resolution. Common thermal scope are generally 320×240[0], and that's plenty to hunt at night. Reduce the frame rate to 15fps, and that's 54x less raw bandwidth, without accounting to whatever gains you can gain with H.264. I'd probably implement some sort of variable bitrate, aim to the general target direction with the high FOV low-resolution low-bitrate feed, then zoom to the crosshair section (low FOV, high resolution, even though the "effective" resolution is the same) and higher bitrate.
[0: btw, I'm not not implying a thermal scope was used here, but simply drawing a parallel for comparison with off the shelf commonly used hunting equipment. If 320x240 is enough to kill a coyote at night at 100 yards, it's plenty to target a human. Not to mention full-auto fire will cause recoil and whack your aim, so you're not looking to repeat a 5-shot group within dime either, just shoot in the rough vicinity and spray the target with projectiles.]
Also, the US army (not implying US involvement here) is piloting drone from the other side of the planet, so getting a signal out of a country is not very difficult.
[0: btw, I'm not not implying a thermal scope was used here, but simply drawing a parallel for comparison with off the shelf commonly used hunting equipment. If 320x240 is enough to kill a coyote at night at 100 yards, it's plenty to target a human. Not to mention full-auto fire will cause recoil and whack your aim, so you're not looking to repeat a 5-shot group within dime either, just shoot in the rough vicinity and spray the target with projectiles.]
Also, the US army (not implying US involvement here) is piloting drone from the other side of the planet, so getting a signal out of a country is not very difficult.
The Nissan was not driving remotely it was fixed on the side of the road.
So signals needed to remotely fire gun and blow up truck.
I wonder how they were able to get the scientists car to stop in the right area.
Bounce it off of a satellite, like on-location news broadcasts do? Those all operate out of a civilian style van with an antenna in it.
Use a multi-cellular modem. Starsky Robotics remote-drove a truck (in the US) that way.
Imho this will only become more feasible as the costs/ease for such implementations keeps getting lower with further advances towards autonomous driving.
Very comparable to what happened with drones: Used to be that only very sophisticated state actors could field such weapons.
But with the rise of consumer-grade drones we started to see DIY implementations where consumer-grade drones were repurposed to drop explosive packages [0].
It's even become a thing for boats, back in 2018 three remote-controlled boats attacked a Saudi-flagged oil tanker in the Red Sea [1], the most recent attack like that just happened this year in July [2].
[0] https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2017/01/drones-isis/13...
[1] https://www.marineinsight.com/shipping-news/swarm-three-remo...
[2] https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-yemen-security-saudi-boats...
Very comparable to what happened with drones: Used to be that only very sophisticated state actors could field such weapons.
But with the rise of consumer-grade drones we started to see DIY implementations where consumer-grade drones were repurposed to drop explosive packages [0].
It's even become a thing for boats, back in 2018 three remote-controlled boats attacked a Saudi-flagged oil tanker in the Red Sea [1], the most recent attack like that just happened this year in July [2].
[0] https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2017/01/drones-isis/13...
[1] https://www.marineinsight.com/shipping-news/swarm-three-remo...
[2] https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-yemen-security-saudi-boats...
Exactly. I guess the only real challenge is in ensuring that the wireless link between the controller and the vehicle is both uninterrupted and low latency.
I was unable to find the original tweets that are in the picture, do you have another source?
Comments mention this same trope was used in Breaking Bad.
Here's Mythbusters version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06t_KP7y8Ao
Here's Mythbusters version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06t_KP7y8Ao
Why not a simple car bomb? This seems way more elaborate than necessary. What message is being sent using this mode of assassination?
Initial reports were of a car bomb powerful enough to knock out a power line, and gunmen shooting the scientist up after. The only consistent thing I've read is that a Nissan was involved. We'll probably never know what actually happened.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/28/world/middleeast/iran-ass...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/28/world/middleeast/iran-ass...
That was the truck self-destructing.
If this setup is actually true, then that remote controlled Nissan could also have served as a VBIED: Unload from the gun until it's empty, then drive the thing into the target zone and explode it to take out whatever survived the gunfire.
Tho if the source is to be trusted that's not how it happened: It exploded 150 m away in the same position it fired from.
So the explosion probably only served to destroy any evidence of the implementation for the remote control.
Also interesting: Earlier reports about this attack did mention suicide/car bomb being part of the attack, but allegedly only as a distraction.
Tho if the source is to be trusted that's not how it happened: It exploded 150 m away in the same position it fired from.
So the explosion probably only served to destroy any evidence of the implementation for the remote control.
Also interesting: Earlier reports about this attack did mention suicide/car bomb being part of the attack, but allegedly only as a distraction.
Eliminating risk. Planting a car bomb is a high risk for the attacker. This remote control truck belongs to a person who left the country (Iran) about a month ago.
> Eliminating risk. Planting a car bomb is a high risk for the attacker.
But how did it self-destruct then?
But how did it self-destruct then?
Planting a car bomb on the victim's car is risky. It's safe to outfit the attacker's car with a self-destruct device in a safe garage.
Could have been to eliminate evidence. Security services can glean alot of information from the type of equipment used and it's sophistication or conversely lack of sophistication.
Couldn't you put a bomb on the remote controlled truck?
Crash into the target, then go boom
Crash into the target, then go boom
Doesn't seem like much of a risk. Fly a drone over the roof of the car, drop a block of C4, detonate.
Easier said and done, commercial drones aren’t reliable and quite likely restricted goods in a country like Iran.
I don’t believe this story really it seems like more of a saving face coverup than anything else.
A car bomb/ied to stop the car and a few automatic weapons work just fine.
If you use local assets that may not even know the actual target or don’t care also gives you sufficient plausible deniability.
I don’t believe this story really it seems like more of a saving face coverup than anything else.
A car bomb/ied to stop the car and a few automatic weapons work just fine.
If you use local assets that may not even know the actual target or don’t care also gives you sufficient plausible deniability.
I think it's "easier said than done"
Regardless. That's all true. Also with a drone you need one that's big enough to carry at least several pounds of explosive...to handle an armored vehicle and the likelihood the detonation would be not directly next to it. You'd need FPV or something so you can guide the drone in close. Also vehicles could be moving at a reasonable place, so the drone would need to be fast enough to keep up/catch up.
Could it be done? Totally. Are there easier/cheaper ways? Totally.
Heck an RC Car ala Call Of Duty games would be more realistic.
Regardless. That's all true. Also with a drone you need one that's big enough to carry at least several pounds of explosive...to handle an armored vehicle and the likelihood the detonation would be not directly next to it. You'd need FPV or something so you can guide the drone in close. Also vehicles could be moving at a reasonable place, so the drone would need to be fast enough to keep up/catch up.
Could it be done? Totally. Are there easier/cheaper ways? Totally.
Heck an RC Car ala Call Of Duty games would be more realistic.
But that’s the point it’s not can it be done, but can it be done effectively enough to be selected as a method of assassination.
Too many things can go wrong with a finicky toy, you still need to be in line of sight most of the time and at that point two guys with AKs or an RPG are going to be a safer bet.
If I had to kill someone in a hostile country I rather have to be the one that empties a mag into their car than the one controlling an RC car trying to get under their vehicle in traffic hoping the battery won’t die, the remote won’t crap out and that no small pothole or pebble on the road will send my toy car flying ala rocket league.
Too many things can go wrong with a finicky toy, you still need to be in line of sight most of the time and at that point two guys with AKs or an RPG are going to be a safer bet.
If I had to kill someone in a hostile country I rather have to be the one that empties a mag into their car than the one controlling an RC car trying to get under their vehicle in traffic hoping the battery won’t die, the remote won’t crap out and that no small pothole or pebble on the road will send my toy car flying ala rocket league.
Imagine a phalanx of drones, one for each car in the procession, all arriving and detonating simultaneously. Not as incredible as we may imagine. If fact, pretty much the state of the art.
I don't think you understand how reality works, or how explosives work...
Small drones can't carry a large payload, an explosion is extremely hard to actually aim. Shaped charges work because they either have enough kinetic energy from inertia to keep the explosion directed to the target or they fused with the target before exploding usually by also hitting it really fast.
This is what 400g of C4 looks like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajmIEhK4LKc and this is under good conditions where the forces of the blast are contained because they put them in a hole in the ground.
If you detonate a few 100 grams of military grade explosive mid air you pretty much need to be within slapping distance of someone to guarantee a kill from the concussive blast.
A hellfire missile has about 10 Kg of high explosive in its warhead and you still get people walking off from a direct vehicle hit mainly because if the missile breaks through the roof and through the floor of the car before exploding it's usually sufficient to prevent the occupants from being turned into a brussels pate, and here were talking about a few millimeters of sheet metal protecting you against 10 Kg (if you wonder why - the path of least resistance works on explosions too, and rather well this is exactly why shape chargers work and why they don't need to be made out of adamantium or even anything particularly though in fact what essentially is paper mache is often used to make the lenses that focus the explosion in a shaped charge).
With the payload these drones can carry a fragmentation warhead would do absolutely squat against a vehicle it might be able to devastate a crowd where these can essentially detonate on contact but even unarmored vehicles won't be nearly as damaged as you think they would.
Life is not a video game.
Small drones can't carry a large payload, an explosion is extremely hard to actually aim. Shaped charges work because they either have enough kinetic energy from inertia to keep the explosion directed to the target or they fused with the target before exploding usually by also hitting it really fast.
This is what 400g of C4 looks like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajmIEhK4LKc and this is under good conditions where the forces of the blast are contained because they put them in a hole in the ground.
If you detonate a few 100 grams of military grade explosive mid air you pretty much need to be within slapping distance of someone to guarantee a kill from the concussive blast.
A hellfire missile has about 10 Kg of high explosive in its warhead and you still get people walking off from a direct vehicle hit mainly because if the missile breaks through the roof and through the floor of the car before exploding it's usually sufficient to prevent the occupants from being turned into a brussels pate, and here were talking about a few millimeters of sheet metal protecting you against 10 Kg (if you wonder why - the path of least resistance works on explosions too, and rather well this is exactly why shape chargers work and why they don't need to be made out of adamantium or even anything particularly though in fact what essentially is paper mache is often used to make the lenses that focus the explosion in a shaped charge).
With the payload these drones can carry a fragmentation warhead would do absolutely squat against a vehicle it might be able to devastate a crowd where these can essentially detonate on contact but even unarmored vehicles won't be nearly as damaged as you think they would.
Life is not a video game.
At least 3 other Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed by car bomb or similar[0]. And Fakhrizadeh had a security detail. So presumably they were well prepared for such a threat.
Anyway, it sounds like the remote-control-truck story is a pure fabrication.
[0]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Iranian_nucle...
Anyway, it sounds like the remote-control-truck story is a pure fabrication.
[0]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Iranian_nucle...
You could kill from much further away. Car bombs require you to be very close to ensure a kill, unless you've got something like a dump truck or cement mixer filled with explosives.
A car bomb might accidentally kill or injure innocent bystanders.
A surgically precise assassination is its own message: "We kill exactly who we mean to and you cannot stop us."
Pretty scary stuff.
A surgically precise assassination is its own message: "We kill exactly who we mean to and you cannot stop us."
Pretty scary stuff.
I'd guess that machine gunning another vehicle before self-destructing might also kill or injure innocent bystanders.
I'm not sure if I would call firing a truck-mounted machine gun from 150 meters away from the target and then exploding the truck a "surgically precise assassination".
Particularly when the US has demonstrated the ability to kill only one passenger in a moving vehicle with the bladed Hellfire R9X.
A simple bomb does not have enough certainty that it will destroy its target without exerting exorbitant amounts of explosives.
Yes this strategy is much more complex but I would argue it has more precision and certainty around its efficacy.
Yes this strategy is much more complex but I would argue it has more precision and certainty around its efficacy.
I think the opposite is more likely. Put a bomb in a remote controlled car - you're going to need one either way - drive close to your target, detonate. Done.
With a machine gun you have to drive close and then aim extremely accurately.
It sounds implausible - at least not without AI superpowers in the targeting system.
At the very least you'd expect lag to be a significant problem.
With a machine gun you have to drive close and then aim extremely accurately.
It sounds implausible - at least not without AI superpowers in the targeting system.
At the very least you'd expect lag to be a significant problem.
Effective blast radius means you need to be close to the target to ensure enough damage to terminate it. The twitter feed mention a motorcade, so the target was likely protected.
Link to original poster here, the other person is giving source zero credit/link.
https://mobile.twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/133308069628228...
https://mobile.twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/133308069628228...
Reminds me of the vehicles in the Daniel Suarez books, Daemon and Freedom.
Imagine Iran killing some Raytheon employees in a terrorist attack.
Reminds me of that short movie about killer drones with built-in face recognition, so they can find the target and assassinate them with extreme precision, autonomously.
That’s not science fiction
He is referring to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecClODh4zYk
Yep, that's the one!
Must watch - Slaughterbots
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA
interesting, no talk about EMP as mitigation
The effect of an EMP on a hardened i.e. Faraday cage-shielded target is quite limited. Even modern automobiles are only momentarily disrupted, if at all, by significant pulses produced in a controlled test setting. As I understand it, common measures taken to protect vehicle electronics against electro-static discharge (ESD) also provide some level of protection against EMP attack. Your mileage may vary with commercial off-the-shelf drones, of course, but it’s not an expensive or difficult technology to retrofit.
My understanding derives chiefly from a U.S. government-commissioned study on the effects of an EMP weapon or natural disaster on things like cars, trucks, airplanes and computers. The results were made public, and are overall fairly reassuring:
http://www.empcommission.org/reports.php
My understanding derives chiefly from a U.S. government-commissioned study on the effects of an EMP weapon or natural disaster on things like cars, trucks, airplanes and computers. The results were made public, and are overall fairly reassuring:
http://www.empcommission.org/reports.php
Reassuring until you realize that 0.1% of components of a complex system failing is likely to bring the overall system down.
In this case: Individual controllers needed to control a power plant or factory, as well as "individual cars on a highway" (once enough break down, the highway is blocked).
In this case: Individual controllers needed to control a power plant or factory, as well as "individual cars on a highway" (once enough break down, the highway is blocked).
Outside of scifi plot devices I don't see how that would be feasible.
EMP is not a practical mitigation. That's something that works in movies, not real life. Generating an EMP powerful enough to damage electronics requires a large explosion to pump the coils. And even then the range is very short.
https://www.farsnews.ir/news/13990909000920/%D8%AC%D8%B2%D8%...
Google Translate of this article matches the summary, and mentions:
"It is worth mentioning that according to the Fars correspondent, in this operation, which lasted about 3 minutes, no human factor was present at the scene of the assassination and the shootings were carried out only with automatic weapons"
Wikipedia has a very different story, citing a number of sources, which involves a dozen human attackers at the scene:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohsen_Fakhrizadeh#Ambush_atta...