Drones

WASHINGTON -- Drone crews protect U.S. ground troops by watching over them 24 hours a day from high above. Sitting before video screens thousands of miles from their remote-controlled aircraft, the crews scan for enemy ambushes and possible roadside bombs, while also monitoring what the military calls "patterns of life."

LOS ANGELES -- One year after the Air Force blasted it into orbit, an experimental robotic space drone continues to circle the Earth.

Its mission and payload, however, remain a mystery.

With a growing fleet of combat drones in its arsenal, the Pentagon is working with the Federal Aviation Administration to open U.S. airspace to its robotic aircraft.

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, the military says the drones it has acquired over the past decade need to return to the United States. When the nation first went to war after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the military had around 50 drones. Now it has nearly 7,500.

The military then hopes to station them at various military bases and use them for many purposes. But the FAA doesn't allow drones in U.S. airspace without special certification.

The Navy's new drone being tested near Chesapeake Bay stretches the boundaries of technology: It's designed to land on the deck of an aircraft carrier, one of aviation's most difficult maneuvers.

What's even more remarkable is that it will do that not just without a pilot in the cockpit, but without a pilot at all.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — American drone-fired missiles killed a ranking member of the militant Haqqani network on Thursday in northwestern Pakistan, striking a group that Washington claims is the top threat in Afghanistan and is supported by Pakistani security forces, local intelligence officials said.

SANAA, Yemen — Al-Qaida’s branch remains a powerful threat in this deeply unstable nation, even after a U.S. drone strike that eliminated three of its key figures. Its military leadership remains intact and is only growing stronger amid months of political turmoil tearing Yemen apart.

Under mounting pressure to keep its massive budget in check, the Pentagon is looking to cheaper, smaller weapons to wage war in the 21st century.

A new generation of weaponry is being readied in clandestine laboratories across the nation that puts a priority on pintsized technology that would be more precise in warfare and less likely to cause civilian casualties. Increasingly, the Pentagon is being forced to discard expensive, hulking, Cold War-era armaments that exact a heavy toll on property and human lives.