Pakistani Militants Attack Security Forces With Bomb-carrying Quadcopter Drones

Militant Islamists in Pakistan have started using commercial quadcopter drones to bomb security forces.

The use of drones powered by four rotors that make it possible to take off and land vertically, worries police who are overwhelmed and underdeveloped, frontline in countering militant attacks.

Two quadcopters sent by militants targeted a police station earlier this month, killing a woman and injuring three children at a nearby home in Bannu district, police officer Muhammad Anwar said.

Drones seen over another police station on Saturday last weekend were shot down with assault rifles. The drone was armed with a mortar.

At least eight such drone attacks have targeted police and security forces in Bannu and surrounding areas in the past two and a half months, he said.

Regional police chief Sajjad Khan said the militants were still trying to control the use of drones.

"The militants have obtained this modern equipment, but they are still in the experimental process and that is why they cannot hit their targets accurately," Khan said.

The militants used quadcopters to drop homemade bombs or mortars on their targets, five security officials said. They say these bombs are filled with ball bearings or pieces of iron.

The head of the Provincial Police, Zulfiqar Hameed, said the police lacked resources to face this new challenge.

"We don't have the equipment to fight drones," he told local Geo News channels on Sunday.

"The militants have better equipment than us," he added.

No militant group has yet claimed responsibility for the drone attack.

The main militant group operating in the northwestern region of Pakistan is Pakistan's Tereek-e-Taliban (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban. But they denied having used drones.

"We are trying to get this technology," a TTP spokesman told Reuters.

In 2024, Islamic militants carried out 335 attacks across the country, killing 520 people, according to Pakistan's Institute for Peace Studies, an independent organization.

In recent weeks, thousands of residents in border areas have staged protests aimed at opposing militant attacks and what they fear are planned attacks by the army.

They fear military operations against militants will displacing them from their homes.

The search operation against militants in 2014 was preceded by the forced evacuation of hundreds of thousands of residents.

They spent months, and in many cases years, away from their homes.