Drones of Precision and Provocation: HAROP and SONGAR in South Asian Skies

NEWS DROP — PETAL 014

🗓️ Date: May 9, 2025
🎯 Thematic Focus: GS3 – Defence | Security Challenges | International Relations
🌿 Intro Whisper:
Where sound once warned, now silence strikes—the drone age has redrawn the battlefield.

🚁 What’s in the News?

• India deployed HAROP drones to strike air defence systems inside Pakistan during Operation Sindoor.
• Pakistan responded with an offensive involving Turkish-made SONGAR drones, reflecting a rising tech-enabled flashpoint in South Asia.

🔍 What Are HAROP Drones?

• Developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)
• A “loitering munition”—a hybrid of surveillance drone and suicide missile
• Nicknamed “Kamikaze drones” or “suicide drones”
• Combines reconnaissance and autonomous attack

Technical Features:

• Endurance: 9 hours in flight
• Range: Up to 1,000 km
• Targets: Radars, missile systems, mobile convoys, enemy bunkers
• Two-way data link enables real-time targeting or mission abort
• Immune to communication jamming

🎯 Strategic Impact of HAROP Drones

• Reduces need for frontline troop exposure
• Enables deep precision strikes
• Can re-loiter if mission is aborted mid-air
• Marked India’s use of unmanned precision warfare during Operation Sindoor, targeting Lahore’s air defence

🕰️ Evolution of Loitering Munitions

• Origin: HARPY drone (1980s)
• HAROP: Second-gen model with electro-optic sensors and improved agility
• Changed warfare by enabling strike-without-prior-intel flexibility

🚨 About SONGAR Drones (Pakistan’s Response)

• Developed by ASİSGUARD (Turkey)
• Armed drone with automatic machine gun (200 rounds)
• Operational range: 3 km
• Max altitude: 2,800 meters
• Now upgraded with 40mm grenade launchers

🌍 Geopolitical Implications

• Turkey’s open support to Pakistan marks a strategic alignment
• President Erdogan called for international investigation but backed Islamabad
• India’s MEA condemned the cross-border offensive following the Pahalgam attack

🔥 Drone Diplomacy and the New Security Order

• Drone warfare now sits at the intersection of technology, deterrence, and diplomacy
• Precision drones like HAROP signal autonomous warfare supremacy
• SONGAR’s use signals a widening of the proxy technology battlefield

📘 GS Paper Mapping:

• GS Paper 3: Internal and External Security | Technology in Warfare
• GS Paper 2: India and Its Neighbourhood | Bilateral Issues
• Essay: “War by Wireless Wings: Precision, Policy, and the Power of Silence”

🌠 Closing Thought:

In an age where machines decide targets, the greatest defence may no longer be a wall—but a whisper of foresight.