Counter UAS Venezuela Leader Survives ‘drone attack’: Soldiers Seen Running

The BBC wrote “Venezuelan officials say explosive drones went off as President Nicolás Maduro was giving a live televised speech in Caracas, but he is unharmed. Footage of the event shows Mr. Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores looking up, startled, and dozens of soldiers running, before the transmission is cut off.”

This attack ushers in a new era in terror, we at the CUAS Coalition are sounding the alarm as this attack was not in the desert, but in the Americas. It was a planned and staged attack against the president of Venezuela by terrorists who previously used a manned helicopter to drop grenades. The attack is getting closer to home and it will only be a matter of time before this becomes more prevalent and viewed as commonplace. No longer will our skies be considered “safe” unless we have counter drone protections in place to help prevent attacks in the future. The damage from this attack might not have been significant, but the psychological impact will be in the minds of the soldiers who in the video (attached to the BBC article) are running for their lives. If any place at all should be considered safe it would have been there surrounded by the huge military presence and all of the police, but the equipment they had on the ground wasn’t enough to stop the attack. Without counter drone equipment that works, as seen in the video the soldiers were unprepared and the terrorists were able to carry out their plot.

Mentioned in my article on Friday The Current State of CUAS in the US: Let’s Not Get Caught with Our Pants Down  drone threats are becoming more real and these people were clearly caught with their pants down. Our country should not be next!! Legislation needs to be changed as quickly as possible to allow operators to thwart the threats from drone attacks. Any open-air venues are now considered “open season” for terrorists using drones to deliver explosive payloads to their targets. The CUAS Coalition is a global organization specializing in security, technology, equipment, tactics and policy to aid in helping companies and organizations protect assets such as people and property. The drone threat will continue to grow until solutions are provided and security professionals educated in the tactics and policy surrounding CUAS. The time is approaching when terrorists will attempt an attack to be carried out on US soil and we should be prepared and not caught with our pants down like in Venezuela.