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Taiwanese troops fire flares to repel a swarm of Chinese drones that overran the Kinmen Islands late Wednesday. Photos/REUTERS
Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense on Thursday (4/8/2022) confirmed the flare shot was a warning shot.
Taiwan has been on high alert as China conducts large-scale war games in response to the visit of US House of Representatives (DPR) Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan.
Major General Chang Zone-sung of the Taiwan Army’s Kinmen Defense Command told Reuters that drone-drone The Chinese came in pairs and flew into the Kinmen area twice on Wednesday evenings, at around 9pm and 10pm.
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“We immediately fired flares to warn and chase them away. After that, they turned around. They entered our restricted area and that’s why we dispersed them,” he said.
The heavily fortified Kinmen Islands are off China’s southeast coast, near the city of Xiamen.
“We have standard operating procedures. We will react if they come in,” Chang said, adding that the alert level there remained normal.
Chang said he believed the drone swarm was meant to gather intelligence about Taiwan’s security deployments on its outlying islands.
Last week, Taiwan’s military fired flares to warn of a drone that was “glaring” at the Matsu islands off the coast of China’s Fujian province, and may be investigating its defenses.
Reports of the drone strike come as tensions around Taiwan are heating up. On Tuesday, Pelosi visited an island that Beijing considers part of China’s sovereign territory.
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