German military wants armed drones to back soldiers
Iran Press TV
Sun Jan 5, 2014 3:23PM GMT
Germany's military elite has called upon the new grand coalition government to purchase armed unmanned aerial vehicles to provide support to German soldiers.
The German Armed Forces Association [Der Deutsche BundeswehrVerband (DBwV)], the German commander of NATO-led forces in the north of Afghanistan, Major General Jorg Vollmer, and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces, Hellmut Konigshaus, have all backed the introduction of the drones to the German military.
Germany's plans to buy armed drones ran into a snag when former Defense Minister, Thomas de Maziere, poured hundreds of millions of euros in the acquisition of EuroHawk drones to fulfill the country's requirement to replace their aging Dassault-Breguet Atlantique electronic surveillance aircraft, but the aircraft were not allowed to fly in German airspace.
The EuroHawk drone is a variant of the RQ-4B) surveillance aircraft, with a customized sensor suite. The unmanned aerial vehicle has set an endurance record by flying continuously in the European airspace for 25.3 hours, reaching an altitude of 58,600 feet.
Germans are highly opposed to the use of armed drones and a draft version of the coalition agreement drawn up between Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) rejected "illegal killings" by drones.
The agreement however did not rule out their future use, and thus the German Armed Forces Association has now called on new Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen to quickly take a decision on the issue.
There are currently about 4,000 German soldiers in Afghanistan. Germany ranks third after the United States and the UK in terms of the number of troops in the country. The US-led war on Afghanistan is widely unpopular in Germany.
According to official figures released by the website icasualties.org, 54 German troops have lost their lives in war-battered Afghanistan.
MP/PR
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