Washington is reportedly highly investing on tiny airborne killing machines, called Lethal Miniature Aerial Missile Systems (LMAMS), which is particularly made to assassinate Pentagon's "high value" targets.

Pentagon and the US Special Forces (SOCOM) are purportedly looking to acquire an extra 325 LMAMS as there appear to be an increasing number of targets and Washington is unwilling to deploy more personnel on the ground, according to Antiwar.com.

Like Us on Facebook

Using the killer drones has now been seen as a tool for "targeted killings" and a way to efficiently demoralize enemies. Furthermore, deploying these lethal drones is way cheaper than paying for boots on the ground, although the latter has been shown to cause widespread collateral damage and thousands of civilian deaths, Sputnik News reported.

However, it could be noted that drone maker AeroVironment confirmed to Defense One last week that it delivered about 350 Switchblades, a tube-launched drones equipped with cameras and cursor-on-target GPS navigation. The company described the device as a "miniature flying lethal missile can be operated manually or autonomously."

That being said, the recent purchase and the need for an extra drone could suggest that SOCOM has either used up all 350 assassination drones at a short period or planned to assassinate many more people in the future, Antiwar.com noted.

On the other hand, Army Col. John Reim, who outfits special operations troops as head of SOCOM's Warrior program office, explained that the missile drones are needed to blow up bigger targets.

"We have a good capability right now with the Switchblade. But it's got a smaller payload. How you get a little larger?" he said. "We're trying to create organic firepower and situational awareness in so many of the places we operate in."

The bee-like LMAMS could reportedly carry explosive payloads, fly fast and low under radar, strike at a specific point, and kill everything within a wide range, Military.com reported. It could fly for about 15 minutes at up to 100 miles per hour.