US military to step up drone flights by 2019

The US military will drastically increase drone flights over the next four years, in a bid to boost intelligence and strike capabilities across a growing number of conflict zones, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

The plan to increase by 50% the number of daily drone flights would broaden surveillance and intelligence collection in such locales as Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, the South China Sea and North Africa, said the official, who provided exclusive details of the plan to The Wall Street Journal.

The Pentagon organize seeks to amplify senses and be broadcast achieve attributes over a rising number of controversy territory, increasing wide range of on a regular basis plane journies from the originial and present grade of 61 it may many as 90 by 2019.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the report, and representatives for the Pentagon could not be immediately reached for comment. The new uptick in reconnaissance missions also won’t affect the CIA’s ongoing drone program, which has remained the most controversial, secretive, and deadly of the US’s drone operations. “Government contractors would be hired to fly older Predator drones on as many as 10 flights a day, none of them strike missions”, a senior defense official told WSJ on the condition of anonymity.

The news comes after a report earlier this summer saying that the Air Force was scaling back its use of drones from 65 per day to 60.