Tagged Bird or Avian Bomb?
Afghan authorities shot down a bird that had a suspicious-looking antenna on it. But what was it?
Around 8 a.m. on November 29, Afghan authorities patrolling the northern Faryab Province saw an unfamiliar bird walking along the highway. It wasn’t just that they hadn’t seen such a bird—turkey-shaped, but half the size—before: The creature was also sporting an antenna. Since the Faryab Province is a known home of Taliban, the police assumed the worst—that the bird was wearing a bomb—and killed it.
“Bird Bomb? Afghan Police Kill Bird Bearing Antenna, Explosives,” the . Police chief Maj. Gen. Abdul Nabi Ilham told NBC that the bird exploded upon being shot, and that “suspicious metal stuff,” was found on the body. A video posted by NBC shows the remnants of the creature, which included part of a GPS device and a camera, according to Ilham.
But was the bird actually retrofitted by the Taliban to carry a bomb? Or did it appear to have an antenna because a conservation group had tagged it with a satellite transmitter to track its migration?
The NBC video scans over some of the equipment found on the bird, revealing a metal tag that identifies it as part of the ECCH, which stands for the Emirates Center for the Conservation of Houbara. As some on , the antenna that gave the police such a scare looked like .
And while the condition of the bird makes it hard to identify, it appears to be a , listed on the IUCN Red List as vulnerable—one step above endangered. (Arabic tradition prizes the Houbara Bustard’s meat for its supposed aphrodisiac quality, and each year .) For a bird that supposedly had a bomb detonate inside of it, the bird is still largely intact. It’s possible the “explosion” Ilham says occurred may have just been the result of a bullet hitting the metal of the GPS tracker the bird carried.
Still, many are reporting that the bird was equipped with a bomb—the “The Taliban’s new DIY drone: A bird fitted with a bomb vest.” Humans have a long history of using animals in warfare, at Motherboard. This past summer, Hamas strapped explosives on a donkey and pushed it toward Israeli troops, .
the Emirates Center for the Conservation of Houbara did not respond to request for comment—perhaps they will when they realize one of their bustards is missing.