Taipei confirms PLA drone filmed Taiwanese soldiers in Kinmen Islands

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
24 Aug 2022 21:17

According to Taipei, a PLA civilian drone flew near Kinmen Islands, and soldiers on the island threw rocks at it.

Taiwanese soldiers were filmed allegedly by a People Liberation Army's drone

After images and videos of Taiwanese soldiers attempting to strike the drone with rocks went popular on Chinese social media, the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense announced on Wednesday that a People's Liberation Army (PLA) drone had approached a military installation on the Kinmen Islands.

Photos of Taiwanese servicemen gazing into a camera that was photographing them from above earlier this week surfaced on Weibo. Users speculated that the images were shot very closely because the faces of the troops are plainly apparent in them. There was also a video online showing the troops attempting to strike the drone with rocks. The drone is allegedly owned by the PLA, according to many users.

The military utilized just radio alerts instead of warning flares since the drone had not breached "the island's airspace," a defense official earlier in the day told Taiwan News.

In a statement, Taipei said that "On August 16, in the second half of the day, a civilian drone intrusion was detected near Erdan Island. Duty soldiers have been extra vigilant and undertook all necessary response procedures," adding that "The purpose of drone invasion of the Communist Party of China, first of all, is to test our reaction to these, and, secondly, to create a distorted image of our army by distributing photos and videos on social media."

Soon after the soldiers started hurling rocks, the drone departed the military outpost, according to the ministry.

Chines UAV moitoring Taiwan border post.
What air defense doing?😂😂 pic.twitter.com/T5rLLvVb0q
— ZOKA (@200_zoka) August 24, 2022

The Kinmen Islands are a collection of islands that are governed by Taiwan and are situated around 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) east of the Chinese city of Xiamen. Since the 1950s, no Chinese military aircraft, including drones, have flown over the Kinmen Islands, according to The South China Morning Post newspaper. However, after Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives visited Taipei in early August amid controversy, the ministry started seeing an increase in the number of Chinese aircraft using the islands' airspace.