ISIS Planning Drone Attacks on Sporting Events and Concerts

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"My name's Abdul. Can I get prime shipping on those drones, please?" 

Happy Thursday!

From Nick Gutteridge of the Express:

ISLAMIC STATE (Isis) are plotting to use toy drones to bomb major events like football matches and music festivals in Britain, it emerged today. 

Terrorists want to use the unmanned machines - available for as little as £100 on the high street - to drop explosives on large crowds at popular sporting and cultural gatherings. 

Defence chiefs fear they could launch a multi-drone attack carrying several bombs, even using airborne cameras to film the bloody carnage below for twisted propaganda videos... 

A counter-terrorism source said: "...Isis is obsessed with re-creating the horror of 9/11 and believes this may be possible by launching a multi-drone attack on large numbers of people in a synchronised attack.

In truth, drones capable of carrying a payload of more than a few ounces cost thousands of pounds, not hundreds. But presumably this would not be a serious expense for ISIS, assuming they did not simply assemble them themselves from a kit or whatever. In addition, you don't need much of a payload capacity to inflict casualties within a crowd, to say nothing of the terror and panic that would be caused by multiple drones, even if many of them were not actually armed.

This short MythBusters video demonstrates the effect of even a small amount of C4 plastic explosive--a few ounces to a few pounds. You don't want to be standing next to it when it goes off:

So what's holding ISIS back? Well, perhaps nothing--drone terror attacks may be only a few months away. But at the risk of being perceived as going all Bill Maher on this, let me say that most Muslim terrorists do seem to be possessed of certain standards (I hesitate to call them ethical standards), which just might mitigate against such a scenario. Among other things, most (though not all) are either suicide attacks or attacks that carry with them a high probability of death or capture. And generally there's a personal element to it--you carry or wear the bomb, or if you use a gun, you (obviously) pull the trigger yourself. I can't think of a prominent recent Muslim terror incident where murder was, so to speak, inflicted at a distance.

Then again, they've been shooting rockets into Israel for years...