Now ISIS Wants Into the Self-Driving Car Business

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

Don’t expect ride sharing.

It seems, some days, that everyone and their sister is working on autonomous vehicles, but a NATO security expert just confirmed that even ISIS is getting in on the technology, Britain’s Express newspaper reports.

Not interested in giving drivers a chance to stretch out while returning emails, Islamic State militants are instead planning a much more sinister (and very predictable) use for their self-driving cars.

Speaking to a London audience, Dr. Jamie Shea, NATO’s deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security threats, said the terror group is developing technology in its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa to create autonomous car bombs for use in strikes against the West.

“We are focusing very much on…Raqqa at the moment, where ISIL [ISIS] has its bomb making factory,” Shea said. “It is not just Google that is producing the autonomous car, ISIS is also trying to do the same.”

Europe, always the innovator, already has a number of autonomous vehicle pilot projects underway with various automakers. Given the pace of technology, self-driving cars could be a legal and growing presence on European roads in just a few years.

Autonomous vehicles would benefit ISIS in two ways. The vehicle could easily carry a bomb to a predetermined destination without arousing suspicion, and it would spare militants from having to perform unpopular suicide bomber duties.

Even if the group’s homegrown autonomous efforts come to nothing, there’s still the option of purchasing the technology for a nefarious purpose at a future date. It’s just one of many emerging threats that overstretched security forces now have to plan for.

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • Daniel g. Daniel g. on May 03, 2016

    Well, a personal drone copter or something like that is coming...just put a dummie full of explosives and is ready to go...no problem with that right?

  • Multicam Multicam on May 03, 2016

    You wouldn't believe some of the clever **** the bomb makers have come up with over the years. Synced multi-pressure-plate IEDs that only go off when vehicles of a certain wheelbase roll over them (two or three pressure plates spaced at exactly the wheelbase of an LMTV or MATV, so that regular vehicles don't set it off), secondary detonators that go off on a timer after 2 minutes if the suicide bomber is shot before he can self-detonate (Mercury in a tube which activates if it is tipped on its side), IR sensors which detonate only if they detect a heat signature high enough to be a military vehicle, EFPs which penetrate an Abrams and of course hundreds of pounds worth of HME to counter our Strykers (build a bigger truck, bomb makers build a bigger bomb). The bomb makers are very clever.

  • Lou_BC Lou_BC on May 03, 2016

    Did this idea come from all of those Takata airbag recalls?

  • Mshenzi Mshenzi on May 04, 2016

    "The vehicle could easily carry a bomb to a predetermined destination without arousing suspicion." ...because nobody ever gives a second glance anymore at all the driverless cars tooling around??

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