FILE - This Jan. 31, 2010 file photo shows an unmanned U.S. Predator drone flies over Kandahar Air Field, southern Afghanistan, on a moon-lit night. After a decade of costly conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American way of war is evolving toward less brawn, more guile. Drone aircraft spy on and attack terrorists with no pilot in harm's way. Small teams of special operations troops quietly train and advise foreign forces. Viruses sent from computers to foreign networks strike silently, with no American fingerprint. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
By LAMECH JOHNSON
Tribune Staff Reporter
ljohnson@tribunemedia.net
THE US has been testing unmanned spy planes over the Bahamas.
Surveillance flights by the high-tech ‘Predator drones’ have been taking place for more than 18 months.
Now the US Department of Homeland Security plans to expand the flights into the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico to fight drug smuggling.
Former National Security Minister Tommy Turnquest said the FNM government gave authorisation to the United States to test the aircraft over open sea in the Bahamas.
Border agents deployed a maritime variant of the ‘Predator B’ aircraft drone called a ‘Guardian’ with a SeaVue radar system able to scan large sections of open ocean.
The drone was used in counter-narcotics flights over the Bahamas. Drug agents were able to check a ship’s unique radio pulse in databases to identify the boat and owner.
“Nothing happens in the Bahamas by the United States without the approval of the government of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas,” said Mr Turnquest.
“Drugs continue to be the main fuel of crime in the Bahamas. Any time that you’re dealing with the interdiction of drug traffickers and the eradication of drug trafficking, I support it,” he said.
“The Commonwealth of the Bahamas and the United States of America have an excellent partnership in the fight against drugs and crime and we’ve worked together closely. I know I did when I was the minister of national security, and I’m sure that the current minister of the PLP administration will continue to do so.”
The results of The Guardian’s flight over Bahamian waters were disappointing, according to officials within the USA’s homeland security department, the LA TImes newspaper reported at the weekend.
The newspaper reported officials as saying that during more than 1,260 hours in the air off the southeastern coast of Florida, The Guardian assisted in only a handful of large-scale busts.
One of the most recent occurred early December 22, said the paper, when a Guardian trained its infra-red eye on a sailboat heading toward the south shoreline of New Providence.
Photographs of the sloop and grid co-ordinates were relayed by the US Embassy in Nassau. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force found no drugs, but arrested 23 men, five women and a boy. The passengers were believed to be migrants from Haiti, it reported.
The Predator B drone gained fame after it was used by the CIA in the killings of Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan and Yemen. It can remain in flight for 30 hours and carries cameras and other sensors.
Some drones have been modified and updated to carry and fire weapons.
Unarmed variations of the aircraft are used for overland patrol of US borders searching known drug smuggling routes.
National Security Minister Dr Bernard Nottage was unavailable for comment.
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