Comment by Riaz Haq on August 20, 2026 at 5:06pm

For Pakistan, the drone threat landscape is mainly two-pronged.

https://irregularwarfarecenter.org/publications/perspectives/drone-...

First, Pakistan faces the risk of cross-border drone attacks from India. This evidently surfaced during the May 2025 India-Pakistan conflict, when militaries of both countries employed loitering munitions; mainly for suppressing each other’s air defense systems. Nonetheless, the employment of drones to target civilian areas expanded the battlespace. That indeed served as a pressure tool by eroding the perceived sense of security associated with physical distance from frontlines and by generating a sense of uncertainty among civilian populations. At the same time, using drones also causes significant? economic damage by targeting critical infrastructures such as oil refineries and even tech centers.

Another dimension of drone threats from New Delhi pertains to India’s rapid expansion of its indigenous drone ecosystem. New Delhi has been producing a spectrum of systems ranging from micro and mini-UAVs to larger tactical platforms. New Delhi is also integrating drones into network-centric warfighting to enhance battlefield coordination. This increases the risk of saturation and drone strikes against Pakistan. Furthermore, New Delhi’s collaboration with Israel for drone procurements, joint drone production and technology transfers, will further coalesce New Delhi’s drone infrastructure.

However, the implications of India’s expanding drone ecosystem are not merely confined to tactical advantages; and impacts escalation dynamics between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. Mutual employment of drones by both India and Pakistan is more of a double-edged sword. On one hand, it can help both countries in offsetting conventional asymmetries. However, on the other hand, it also lowers the threshold for use of force. At the same time, drone warfare also holds the potential to prolong a conflict, converting a possible limited conflict into a war of attrition.

The second dimension of Pakistan’s drone threat stems from non-state actors, particularly from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a UN-designated terror outfit. The group has increasingly incorporated commercially available quadcopter drones for offensive strikes against Pakistan’s military installations, and lately urban centers as well. In 2025, the TTP and its affiliates conducted around 400 drone attacks using armed quadcopters in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. This is reflective of TTP’s newfound realization that drones could be a better substitute of its prior tactics of suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices. In addition to this, the TTP has also been employing counter-drone technologies to ward off aerial attacks and disrupt the surveillance and monitoring capabilities of police and security force.

It should be noted, that TTP’s employment of drones is currently in its rudimentary stages. Their drone strikes have not yet caused significant damage. This may be due to TTP’s limited technical capacity and operational shortcomings in technological adaptation, but the threat cannot be dismissed altogether. In 2026, Taliban-led drone incidents took place across Pakistani cities including Quetta, Kohat, Rawalpindi, Abbottabad, Swabi, and Nowshera. While earlier phases of TTP’s campaign appeared to focus on inflicting higher casualties on security forces, the emerging pattern signals its aim to generate psychological pressure among the broader civilian population.

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 20, 2026 at 7:36pm

The future of drone warfare is . As mass-produced, low-cost systems reshape the battlefield, militaries are pivoting toward autonomous navigation, electronic hardening, and directed-energy countermeasures to survive saturation attacks. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Key Technological Shifts

• Artificial Intelligence & Full Autonomy: Drones are moving away from vulnerable radio links and human pilots, utilizing onboard AI for independent target identification, tracking, and strike execution. [1, 2]

• Swarm Intelligence: Hundreds of networked drones will coordinate split-second tasks—dividing duties between surveillance, electronic jamming, and kinetic attack—to overwhelm traditional air defenses. [1]

• Anti-Jamming Innovations: To counter heavy electronic warfare (EW), systems are adopting physical workarounds like fiber-optic guidance cables alongside hardened, encrypted mesh networks. [1, 2]

• Multi-Domain Expansion: Unmanned systems are expanding past the skies into ground logistics/combat robots (UGVs) and autonomous maritime speedboats (USVs) for strike and rescue missions. [1, 2]

Emerging Countermeasures

• Directed-Energy & Lasers: High-powered lasers and microwaves are becoming critical economic necessities to shoot down cheap, mass-produced drones without depleting expensive conventional missile stockpiles. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

• Decentralized Dispersion: Troops are forced into deeper underground concealment, extreme spatial dispersion, and heavy reliance on decoy hardware to survive transparent, real-time aerial surveillance.[1, 2]

• Industrial Scale: As outlined in aggressive defense programs like the Pentagon's mass-drone initiatives, the ultimate victor in future conflicts will rely as much on high-volume manufacturing capacity as on raw technology. [1, 2]

Comment by Riaz Haq on Sunday

Reports indicate that , though formal confirmation of a joint production contract remains unverified by official state channels. [1, 2]

System Capabilities of the LD-76

• Design & Chassis: Integrates a modified naval-derived 76mm automatic cannon onto a high-mobility 6x6 military truck chassis. [1, 2]

• Munitions: Utilizes programmable airburst and proximity-fused ammunition designed to effectively shred low-observable threats without requiring a direct hit. [1, 2]

• Operational Range: Delivers an effective slant range of up to 10 kilometers against aerial targets. [1]

• Combat Role: Tailored for hard-kill terminal defense against drone swarms, loitering munitions, and incoming cruise missiles, while retaining secondary direct-fire capability against light ground armor. [1, 2]

Strategic Context

• Layered Defense: The interest in rapid-fire kinetic gun systems reflects a broader doctrinal shift in South Asian military planning toward cost-effective, hard-kill point defense for critical infrastructure and airbases. [1, 2]

• Bilateral Ties: Pakistan remains a primary recipient of China's military hardware exports, continually seeking technology integration and transfer arrangements to offset asymmetric aerial threats. [1]

Comment by Riaz Haq 3 hours ago

How the Iranian Shahed Drone Transformed War—With China’s Help
Proliferation of cheap one-way drones was made possible by a complex global supply chain that keeps leading back to China

https://www.wsj.com/world/how-the-iranian-shahed-drone-transformed-...

In early July, terrifying shrieks were heard across Kyiv. As part of a wider attack on the Ukrainian capital, Russia had launched cheap one-way drones powered by turbojet engines instead of propellers.

The Shahed—a deceptively simple and destructive flying wedge of fiberglass, microchips and explosives costing as little as $20,000—helps show how weapons proliferation has changed, and why tapping global supply chains is now so important.

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The Shahed drones, now more like missiles, were capable of flying up to around 300 miles an hour—roughly three times as fast as older versions. Some 30 people were killed in the attack, which also included ballistic and cruise missiles.

It was the latest innovation in one-way attack drones and, like others, it only became possible thanks to China, whose factories provided the engines, according to Ukrainian officials who examined some of them.

Washington’s main strategic rival has long served as arguably the most important clearinghouse for Shahed components, including engine parts, servomotors and gyroscopes, according to current and former U.S. officials and analysts.

It is part of a complex global supply chain that analysts say enabled an isolated country—Iran—to pioneer and share one of the most transformative military innovations of the era: cheap, flying, killing machines that have bedeviled the U.S. and its allies, added to the civilian toll in Ukraine and undermined America’s military edge in the Middle East.

China’s foreign ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment. It previously said it strictly regulates the export of “dual use” components, which can serve both civilian and military purposes. It rejects unilateral U.S. sanctions that punish unauthorized trading of such parts, saying they violate international law.

The Shahed—a deceptively simple and destructive flying wedge of fiberglass, microchips and explosives costing as little as $20,000—helps show how weapons proliferation has changed, and why tapping global supply chains is now so important.

In the past, technological innovations in warfare tended to come from major powers that had their own industrial bases, enabling them to produce their weapons at scale. The AK-47 rifle is a good example: It was developed by Russian designers, influenced by a German assault rifle, then mass-produced by the Soviet Union’s sprawling factories.

In today’s world, however, any country with an idea for a weapon—even a middle power such as Iran—can turn to cheap parts suppliers abroad, especially in China.

To develop Shaheds, Iran employed a design pioneered by the U.S. and West Germany. To actually make them, however, Tehran had to source parts from across the globe, including Western nations as well as China. Yet even the Western parts tended to get moved through shell companies in mainland China or Hong Kong to disguise their origin, and over time, many were replaced by components made there, according to former U.S. officials, Ukrainian officials and analysts.

Comment by Riaz Haq 3 hours ago

How the Iranian Shahed Drone Transformed War—With China’s Help
Proliferation of cheap one-way drones was made possible by a complex global supply chain that keeps leading back to China

https://www.wsj.com/world/how-the-iranian-shahed-drone-transformed-...

Early Iranian drones, including some tested during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, were used for reconnaissance and air support, with antitank rockets strapped under the wings.

But those UAVs were highly inaccurate. That spurred a shift toward one-way attack drones, which Iranian engineers reckoned could still do significant damage, even if they didn’t hit their targets. The name Shahed, or “witness,” came from Shahed Aviation Industries Research Center, an Iranian company tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, U.S. officials and analysts say.

One big obstacle for Iranian engineers was coming up with an engine that could sustain high speeds and temperatures for hours at a time. The best option was a German-designed engine known as the L 550 E.

A 2008 WikiLeaks cable from U.S. diplomats to their German counterparts detailed how Iran obtained the engine from its maker, Limbach Flugmotoren, possibly with the help of intermediaries using fake documents to throw customs inspectors off the scent.

In 2012, a Chinese company began distributing Limbach’s engines and then bought the German company outright in 2017, making it easier for Iran to import the engines. The Treasury Department later sanctioned the Chinese company’s affiliate, Xiamen Limbach Aircraft Engine, for supplying the engines to Russia for its drone program.

Xiamen Limbach didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Iran eventually developed its own engine based on the Limbach models, led by Oje Parvaz Mado Nafar Company, a Revolutionary Guard-linked firm, according to the U.S. Treasury. But it, too, relied on cheap components sourced through China.

The U.S. imposed sanctions on Mado in 2021. Ukraine later said the company’s co-owner and chairman, Brig. Gen. Abdollah Mehrabi, was directly responsible for a 2022 deal that sold more than 13,000 Shaheds to Russia, along with components and manufacturing equipment, for $324 million.

Comment by Riaz Haq 3 hours ago

How the Iranian Shahed Drone Transformed War—With China’s Help
Proliferation of cheap one-way drones was made possible by a complex global supply chain that keeps leading back to China

https://www.wsj.com/world/how-the-iranian-shahed-drone-transformed-...

Iranian and Russian officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The U.S. sanctions against Mado also targeted a Chinese businessman named Ma Jie for helping supply parts. The work allegedly included arranging meetings between Iranian defense officials and Chinese suppliers and using companies in mainland China and Hong Kong to buy parts to make engines for Shaheds, such as aluminum alloy castings.

Iran’s and Russia’s one-way drones have also relied on parts from Western countries. These include microcontrollers from Texas Instruments and linear regulators from STMicroelectronics in Switzerland, according to teardowns of the drones by Ukrainian state researchers, leaked documents from Russia and analysts.

However, investigations by the Treasury Department found that virtually all of the American and European parts were being diverted through Chinese intermediaries. Shell companies, often in Hong Kong, would order parts from Western suppliers while disguising that the ultimate destination was Iran or Russia.

Texas Instruments said it “strongly opposes the use of our chips in Russian and Iranian military equipment and the illicit diversion of our products to Russia and Iran.” STMicroelectronics said it doesn’t support or condone the use of its products in applications outside their intended purpose.

Chinese advancements

Over time, Western components have been disappearing from the Shahed, Ukrainian officials and analysts say, even as the drones gain more sophisticated navigation and attack capabilities.

Col. Oleksandr Zaruba, a senior government researcher in Ukraine, said in June that Shaheds are now found with more antennae, modems and SIM cards to correct flight paths using local networks—and that the components increasingly come from China.

Some of the drones have been found with antiaircraft weapons, Zaruba added, which would make them a far greater threat to the planes and helicopters used to shoot them down. Photographs of one such drone shown to reporters in Kyiv in June showed a large antiaircraft missile strapped to the top of a Shahed, an echo of the antitank weapons that Iranians attached to early drones in the 1980s.

The missile wasn’t functional and was likely intended to scare off aircraft attempting to down the drone, Zaruba said.

Russia sometimes launches Shaheds, which it calls Geran, alongside ballistic missiles in an effort to overwhelm defenses. The missiles carry more punch and caused many of the deaths in the July 2 attack on Kyiv. But Shaheds are cheaper and can be sent in far greater numbers, straining Ukrainian defenses.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky singled out Russia’s use of turbojet-powered Shaheds after the July 2 attack. Ordinarily, Ukraine is able to stop more than 90% of the older one-way drones Russia sends. But the new turbojet models can outrun interceptor drones made by Ukraine and must be downed by jet fighters or Ukraine’s limited supply of interceptor missiles, Ukrainian officials say.

The Chinese company that Ukraine’s government says makes the turbojet engines, Telefly Telecommunications Equipment, was founded in 2010 in the southern Chinese commercial hub of Shenzhen. It is chiefly a maker of computer hardware and communications equipment, but also sells its own line of micro turbojets, which are small engines used in drones.

Comment by Riaz Haq 3 hours ago

How the Iranian Shahed Drone Transformed War—With China’s Help
Proliferation of cheap one-way drones was made possible by a complex global supply chain that keeps leading back to China

https://www.wsj.com/world/how-the-iranian-shahed-drone-transformed-...

Telefly didn’t respond to requests for comment.

After Ukraine publicized the discovery of Telefly engines in Russian drones, the turbojets section disappeared from English-language pages on the company’s website. They can still be found on its pages in Chinese and other languages and on other Chinese vendors online.

“For a long time the focus for making the Shahed was about getting Western parts. They focused on that a lot,” said Kerri Bitsoff, a former Treasury Department official. “Now I think that has shifted as China has become better at manufacturing parts and technology like this.”

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