Hezbollah used armed drone to carry out an attack

Hezbollah, the militant group, used drones to bomb a building occupied by the Al-Nusra Front, an al Qaeda affiliate.

According to the CNN, the shiite militant group Hezbollah, which is headquartered in Lebanon, killed 23 and wounded 10 of the Nusra Front militants in a combined attack with both armed drones and ground troops.

Hezbollah is sponsored by Iran, where the majority of population is Shia while al Qaeda and its affiliates are supported Sunni governments. The conflict between the followers of these two branches of Islam is centuries old.

The attack that was carried out by Hezbollah is actually a milestone. It is the first time that a militant group, not a nation-state used armed drone technology in an attack and succeeded. This might point to the closing gap between military technology used by nations states and militant or terrorist groups, CNN reported.

Drones are being increasingly preferred in surveillance and combat every day. They are used for mapping, surveillance, attack by militaries and militant groups. For example, ISIS recently posted a video on YouTube to show their drones at work, capturing images of "enemy" territory.

CNN said that if the reports of Hezbollah using a drone in a successful attack happen to be true, the group may join an exclusive club including countries like the United States, United Kingdom and Israel.

Other countries like China, Russia and Iran are known to possess armed drones but they haven't used any of those in combat yet.

Experts point out the changing face of warfare in the 21th century. Advanced military technology once monopolized by nation states is now also being used by non-state actors. The militant groups seem to be catching up with the nation-states in that regard.

The term "arms race" originally was used to describe the competition between nations in their competition to posses superior weapons and gear might now expand to militant groups.