“The remotely piloted aircraft hit at the Ali Al Salem base in Kuwait is certainly a loss, but I do not believe it significantly affects the operational capability of our entire contingent there, also because the mission does not rely on a single asset. We must simply acknowledge that we are in a very delicate area and that American bases in Kuwait have been attacked before.” This is what General Marco Bertolini, former commander of COVI, told Adnkronos after the attack on the Italian base in Kuwait. “Deciding whether to stay or withdraw,” he added, “does not depend on the loss of one drone, but on a strategic, military, political and security assessment.”
“Our Air Force base in Kuwait,” General Bertolini explained, “was deployed at the same time as the base in Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan. Both were intended to counter ISIS and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Syrian offshoot of Al Qaeda, which operated in Iraq and Syria. Our aircraft and drones in this case were carrying out reconnaissance and intelligence missions. That means they are not armed aircraft; they are used for reconnaissance. As for Iran, which could have struck our base, it is a sworn enemy of those two terrorist organizations against which we deployed our forces in the area.”
An MQ-9A ‘Predator’ the aircraft destroyed in Kuwait
The remotely piloted aircraft of the Italian Task Force Air hit in the drone attack at the Ali Al Salem base in Kuwait would be an MQ-9A ‘Predator’. It was manufactured by the U.S. company General Atomics.
Italy’s national acquisition of the Predator, in its initial MQ-1C (Predator A) version and the associated logistics, began in 2001, according to the Defense Ministry website. Since then, Italian Predator A aircraft have been successfully employed in various international operations where, interoperating with other NATO assets, they performed reconnaissance tasks. Building on the success of the Predator A, in 2008 Italy acquired several examples of the system’s evolution, the MQ-9A (Predator B) in the Block 1 version. Compared with the previous model, the Predator B provides greater Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities thanks to an advanced sensor suite.”
Unlike the Predator A, the Predator B was procured through the U.S. government under a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) contract. This FMS contract, as a ‘total package’, includes not only the system supply but also the engineering and technical-logistical support needed to manage the fleet. As with the Predator A, the Predator B has been deployed both domestically and in operational theaters, where it has consistently performed successfully alongside the armed forces of NATO allied countries.
The Italian Defense Ministry’s website provides these acquisition and operational details.