Paris, Nov 08: The car heads across the scorched desert of the Arabian peninsula, a suspected terrorist mastermind at the wheel, while just out of sight, his nemesis circles above in the form of small robot plane. In an air-conditioned room on the US eastern seaboard, a man in shirtsleeves sips his coffee and presses a key on his laptop computer, dealing out death half a world away.

The drone unleashes its Hellfire missiles, blasting the car to pieces, then banks and heads for home, coldly oblivious to the receding ball of flame.

That, or something like it, may have been the scenario for the killing of an Al-Qaeda operative and five associates in Yemen on Sunday, reportedly by the the CIA.

The assassination marks a new step in a trend towards unmanned warfare, in which expensively trained pilots and frontline troops will be increasingly taken over by cheap robots. Mark Daly, editor of the British publication Jane's International Defence Review, says the US but also other advanced economies, including Britain, France and Israel, are pouring cash into military robotics.

"There are whole groups of pilotless technologies under development. It's still early days," he said.

The drone reportedly used in Sunday's operation is merely the first generation of this technological spurt. It is essentially a larger, smarter version of a radio-controlled model aircraft, equipped to carry reconnaissance cameras and sensors and "piloted" by someone on the ground. The US started fitting them with missiles for operations in Afghanistan. The next generation will be faster, more sophisticated and have a longer range.

Daly says the most remarkable robot planes he has seen are "sub-miniature" ones, "which are literally the size of your hand" and which, with economies of scale, could cost about 1,000 dollars apiece.

"Some of them employ very strange technology," Daly said. Bureau Report