could new technology stop the threat?

Easily available, difficult to detect and hard to intercept, small drones pose a challenge to even the world’s most advanced militaries.

When Iraqi tanks had ISIS cornered during the battle of Mosul in 2017, the extremists disabled a US-made M1A1 – a 60-tonne behemoth and one of the world’s most formidable armoured vehicles – by using a makeshift drone to drop a small grenade next to the commander’s hatch.

A drone costing less than $1,000 was able to defeat a tank worth $4 million in an incident that underscored how effective even civilian drones could be in the hands of terrorists who can easily turn them into weapons.

Terrorists and paramilitary groups across the region, from Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to Hezbollah and Iraq’s…