Authorities in Spain shut down a drone factory allegedly run by members of Hezbollah on Thursday. The factory was responsible for manufacturing more than a thousand kamikaze drones that the group planned to use against Israel, according to Spanish authorities,
Drones have become a ubiquitous weapon of war. It’s easy to manufacture a quad-copter or Shaded-136 style kamikaze drone, load them down with explosives, and send them to an enemy’s frontlines. They’re basically cheap remote-controlled cruise missiles. Both Ukraine and Russia have made extensive use of drones during the war in Ukraine. Sometimes a suicide drone is as simple as strapping a grenade to an off-the-shelf quadcopter.
The Islamic State pioneered the use of cheap off-the-shelf drones during the early days of its attempts to build a Caliphate in Syria and Iraq. The machines are cheap to manufacture, but sourcing parts can be difficult for people in war zones. The logistic supply chains for these machines can be long and typically involve pieces bought in Europe or the U.S.
Those supply chains make drone factories vulnerable. Spanish authorities say they figured out something was amiss when they noticed Lebanese citizens in Spain were shipping large amounts of “material and components suitable for the construction of military-type unmanned aircraft.”
Spain partnered with authorities in Germany and launched an investigation that ended in the shutting down of the factory, and the arrest of three people in Spain and four in Germany. Authorities said the shipments included “a large amount of material, including electronic guidance components, propellers, bearings, dozens of gasoline engines, more than two hundred electric motors, as well as more than two tons of resins and hardening substances, key to forming the fuselage, wings and moving parts of the UAVs.”
Hezbollah has made extensive use of UAVs against Israel since Oct. 7 when Hamas raided southern Israel. Israel invaded Gaza in retaliation and Hezbollah began to fire rockets at Israel from Lebanon, saying it was doing so in solitary with Hamas.
