TURKEY'S DRONES FOR AFRICA

There are few greater recent success stories in military UAVs than Turkey's rapid transformation over the past twenty years into one of the world's key suppliers, mirroring a huge advancement in the rest of its indigenous defence industry.

- DARREN OLIVIER

THE MAIN DRIVER of the success has been Baykar Defence, a well-connected Turkish defence company that specialises in T drones.

Baykar started out in 1984 making automotive parts, switching to UAVs in the early 2000s in response to a Turkish government indigenisation programme after it was unable to acquire certain types of UAVs and UCAVS abroad.

Over the years it has produced a range of UAVs, but by far its most well-known and popular has been the Bayraktar TB2, which has seen extensive use by Ukraine during Russia's ongoing invasion, and before that in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In both cases, as well as in theatres like Libya, Nigeria, and Syria, TB2s have demonstrated an ability to conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions and strike targets with precision-guided munitions despite hostile conditions.

Export success has been swift, with over 400 TB2s exported to more than twenty-five countries since its first flight just eight years ago, making it one of the most prevalent types in service today. Of the twenty operators, eleven (Morocco, Ethiopia, Libya, Libya, Somalia, Djibouti, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Togo, Niger, Nigeria, and Mali) are in Africa.

While Baykar has received by far the most orders, the TB2 is not the only Turkish UAV seeing export success in Africa and elsewhere: Turkish Aerospace Industries has sold a number of Anka UAVs to Algeria, Chad, and Tunisia.