**Combat Drones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, Gaza: An Austrian Company and the War**

When even mainstream media began reporting critically in 2013 on the thousands of people killed by CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, it came to light that the engines powering these combat drones originated in Upper Austria. Yet to this day, every Austrian government has remained silent about this scandal.

Under both U.S. President George W. Bush and Barack Obama, “suspected” individuals in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen were remotely assassinated without trial—usually by “Hellfire” air-to-surface missiles launched from Predator drones. Even the Guardian, a mainstream British newspaper, reported in 2013—citing the Bureau of Investigative Journalism—with some astonishment that among the 2,500 to 3,300 people killed in Pakistan between 2004 and 2012 were at least 176 children (1).

Particularly the so-called “double-tap” strikes—where rescuers rushing to help the wounded were themselves killed—were described as potential war crimes.

The CIA kills with Austrian engines

A month later, in February 2013, the Austrian daily Die Presse reported that all Predator combat drones (“General Atomics MQ-1B”) built in California by the arms manufacturer GeneralAtomics were equipped with an UpperAustrian ROTAX 914 engine (2).

Both the U.S.AirForceand the CIAcontinue to use these drones for warfare to this day. As early as 1995, Predator drones in their reconnaissance version (“RQ-1”) were operating in support of fighter aircraft. During the war in Yugoslavia, they flew from the Albanian military base Gjader/ Lezha against Serbia—apparently still powered by the older “ROTAX 912” engines from Upper Austria (3)(4).

In a statement to DiePressein 2013, the ROTAXcompanydeclared that sales in the United States were independently handled by a “U.S. distributor.” The company was aware that ROTAX engines were being used not only in Predator drones but also in Israeli and French military drones—the latter deployed in the war in Mali.

From Gunskirchen to the world’s wars

The ROTAX plant in Gunskirchen, near Wels, traces its origins to a bicycle parts company; the ROTAX brand was registered in 1906, and the “ROTAX Werk AG” was founded in 1920. In the following decades, particularly through its ties to German sites, production increasingly focused on engines and gear systems.

It should be noted that the GunskirchensubcampoftheMauthausenconcentrationcamp, which existed during World War II, had no connection to the ROTAX factory.

In the postwar years, ROTAX produced countless engines for land, water, and air vehicles—often intended for the recreational sector. In 1959, the company merged with the rail manufacturer

Lohner, and in 1970 ROTAX was acquired by the Canadian company Bombardier. The Austrian subsidiary’s name was slightly modified several times over the years.

With the introduction of the ROTAX 912A engine in 1989, production of light aircraft engines began—primarily for civilian use, but also purchased by arms manufacturers and integrated into reconnaissance and combat drones.

On October 9, 2020, the Austrian newspaper DerStandard reported

on the use of ROTAXenginesin TurkishBayraktarTB2combatdronesduring the Armenian–Azerbaijani war in Nagorno-Karabakh (5).

Targeted drone killings were carried out not only in this Caucasus war but also by Turkey, whose drones sought to liquidate Syrian militias and PKK forces in northern Iraq.

At the time, the Austrian Ministry of Economy told Der Standard that the engines, as “free goods,” were not covered by the 2016 arms embargo imposed by the Austrian parliament against Turkey. And the ROTAXcompany, as in the case of the Predator engines, emphasized that it made no “direct” deliveries to drone manufacturers and had no contractual agreements with them. The engines, it said, were sold through a global network of distributors.

However, on October26,2020—less than three weeks after the article appeared—BRPROTAX announced that it had stoppeddeliveriestocountrieswithunclearusage(6).

This proved that media exposure can indeed exert pressure on Austrian arms suppliers. BRP ROTAX earns the vast majority of its revenue from the civilian sector and could easily afford to stop the use of its engines in combat drones.

Even then, the company reportedly felt uneasy about the use of Upper Austrian ROTAX 914 engines in Iranian“Shahed-129”drones. The AustrianMinistryofEconomyargued at the time that it would only be required to take action if ROTAX itself confirmed that the engines had been directly delivered and were being used for military purposes.

In the Ukraine war, both sides are fighting with ROTAX engines

On October 20, 2022, a few months after what the author describes as the Western-provoked invasion of Russian troops into eastern Ukraine (7a), Der Standard cited Ukrainian sources reporting that large Iranianexplosive-ladendronespowered by UpperAustrianROTAXengines were striking targets in Ukraine (7b).

These were, in effect, kamikazedrones. More than 70 people had so far been killed by these Iranian-made drones launched by Russia. The drones—of the Shahed and Mojaher types—reportedly had a range of 2,500 kilometers and speeds of up to 185 km/h.

Photos taken near Odessa, showing an Iranian drone that crashed into the Black Sea, clearly displayed a ROTAX 912 engine from Upper Austria (7c).

It was claimed that these Iranian drones were powered by “stolen”enginesrather than units sold via legitimate distributors. The othersideofthewar, Ukraine, is also believed to be using ROTAX engines—leftovers from before the 2014 coup and the outbreak of war. Manned ultralight aircraft of the type “AeropraktA-22”, which have been fitted with ROTAX engines since the 1990s, were converted by Ukraine into unmanned explosive-laden drones.

In April2024, one such A-22 flew 800kilometersunmannedto strike a Russiandronefactory, and in April2025, another A-22 accidentally destroyed a residentialbuildinginRostov-on-Don —both almost certainly powered by Austrian engines (8). Furthermore, the Ukrainianlong-rangedrone“UkrjetUJ-22Airborne”, with a wingspanof4.2 meters, capable of carrying a large warhead or several bombs over a distance of up to 800 kilometers, is also powered by a ROTAX engine from Gunskirchen.

These UJ-22 combat drones were among those used in attacks on Moscow(9).

Let that sink in: Austrian engines have been used in attacks on a nuclear superpower—for instance, on April23and again on May2,2023, when UJ-22dronesequippedwithAustrian motors attempted to assassinate the head of state of nuclear-armed Russia (10).

Regardless of one’s position on the question of guilt in the Ukraine war, Austria should—indeed, must—remain uninvolved in acts of war.

And the murderofaheadofstatehas neverbeen a legitimate act under international law—not even during the Cold War.

BRPROTAX: “Approved only for civilian use”

The supply of engines to the United States could still be justified in the media — after all, the prevailing narrative claimed that the U.S.andNATOcountrieswerethe“goodguys”, allegedly fighting a “war on terror” (rather than a war for oil, resources, and geopolitical dominance).

With Turkey, the argument already became more difficult — though it was, at least, a NATO memberstate. But now, with RussianandIraniandronesdelivering their explosives using engines from UpperAustria, unease began to spread.

On October21,2022, the then pressspokespersonforBRPROTAXdeclared that the company had been “informed about the alleged use of ROTAX engines by Iranian drones in conflict regions.” She stated that the company took this situation very seriously.

BRPROTAX (the abbreviation stands, somewhat ironically, for Bombardier Recreational Products) had, she said, neither directly nor through distributors authorized any sales to military drone manufacturers in Iran or Russia. The engines were approvedexclusivelyforcivilian use.

So, are all uses of the ROTAX912and ROTAX914engines in combat drones some kind of accident — the result of inattentive distributors and the absence of an end-user certificate prohibiting resale to the military?

In this context, we turn to Israel, where IDFcombatdroneshave, for years, killedcountless civilians during bombardments in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere.

The drone division of the IsraelicorporationIAI(IsraelAerospaceIndustries)has been building military “Heron” drones since the 1990s — several versions of which are powered by ROTAX engines from Upper Austria.

Even larger — around eight meters long with a wingspan of fifteen meters — is the “Hermes900” surveillanceandcombatdrone, built by the Israeli arms manufacturer ElbitSystems. This drone