ISLAMABAD: Islamist militants in Pakistan have started using commercially acquired quadcopter drones to drop bombs on security forces in the country’s northwest, police said, a potentially dangerous development in the volatile region.
The use of such drones, which are powered by four rotors allowing for vertical take-off and landing, is worrying the overstretched and under-equipped police force, the frontline against militant attacks, officials said.
Two quadcopters sent by the militants targeted a police station earlier this month, killing a woman and injuring three children in a nearby house in Bannu district, said police officer Muhammad Anwar.
A drone spotted over another police station on Saturday was shot down with assault rifles, he said. It was armed with a mortar shell, he said.
At least eight such drone attacks have targeted police and security forces in Bannu and adjacent areas in the last two and a half months, he said.
Regional police chief Sajjad Khan said militants were still trying to master the use of the drones.
“The militants have acquired these modern tools, but they are in the process of experimentation and that’s why they can’t hit their targets accurately,” he added. The militants are using the quadcopters to drop improvised explosive devices or mortar shells on their targets, five security officials said. They said these explosive devices were packed with ball bearings or pieces of iron.
Provincial police chief Zulfiqar Hameed said the police lacked resources to meet the new challenge.
“We do not have equipment to counter the drones,” he told the local Geo News channel on Sunday. “The militants are better equipped than we are,” he said.
No militant group has claimed responsibility for the drone strikes.
The main militant group operating in the northwest is the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban. But they denied using the drones. “We are trying to acquire this technology,” a TTP spokesman told Reuters.
In 2024, Islamist militants carried out 335 countrywide attacks, killing 520 people, according to the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, an independent organization.
In recent weeks, thousands of residents from the border region have staged protests, aimed against both the attacks by militants and what they fear is an offensive planned by the army, according to a statement issued by the demonstrators.
They said they feared that a military operation against the militants would displace them from their homes.
A sweeping operation against militants in 2014 was preceded by a forced evacuation of hundreds of thousands of residents. They spent months, and in many cases years, away from their homes.
Pakistan’s army did not respond to a request for comment on whether an operation was planned.
Pakistani Islamist militants use drones to target security forces, officials say
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Pakistani Islamist militants use drones to target security forces, officials say
- Pakistani Police said Islamist militants in Pakistan have started using commercially acquired quadcopter drones to drop bombs on security forces in the country’s northwest
- Two quadcopters sent by the militants targeted a police station earlier this month
UN chief says 37,000 West Bank Palestinians displaced in 2025; warns Gaza war threatens two-state solution
- ‘We enter 2026 with the clock ticking louder than ever. Will the year ahead bend towards peace or slip into the abyss of despair?” asks Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
- Illegal settlement expansions, demolitions, displacements and evictions in the West Bank are accelerating, he says
NEW YORK CITY: More than 37,000 Palestinians were displaced in the occupied West Bank during 2025, a year in which there were also record-high levels of violence committed by Israeli settlers, UN secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday.
The situation on the ground was rapidly eroding the prospects for a two-state solution, he warned.
“We enter 2026 with the clock ticking louder than ever,” Guterres told the opening session of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.
“Will the year ahead bend towards peace or slip into the abyss of despair?”
Illegal settlement expansions, demolitions, displacements and evictions in the West Bank were accelerating, said Guterres, who described the Israeli actions as destabilizing in nature and unlawful under international law.
“The recently published tender by Israel for 3,401 housing units in the E1 area (of the West Bank), alongside continued demolitions, is profoundly alarming,” he added.
“If carried forward, it would sever the northern and southern West Bank, undermine territorial contiguity, and strike a severe blow to the viability of a two-state solution.”
Turning to the situation in Gaza, Guterres said Palestinians there continued to endure “grave suffering.” More than 500 have been killed since the truce between Israel and Hamas in October, he noted.
“I urge all parties to implement the (ceasefire) agreement in full, exercise maximum restraint, and comply with international law and UN resolutions,” he said.
He called for the rapid and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid at scale, including through the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which Israel reopened on Monday.
Guterres criticized Israeli authorities for the continued suspension of international non-governmental organizations that provide aid, which he said “defies humanitarian principles, undermines fragile progress, and worsens the suffering of civilians.”
Regarding the future of Gaza, he said any sustainable solution must include governance of the territory and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by a unified and internationally recognized Palestinian government.
“Gaza is and must remain an integral part of a Palestinian state,” Guterres added.
He also reaffirmed his support for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, and condemned recent Israeli legislation and other actions he said impeded the ability of the agency to operate, including moves to demolish its Sheikh Jarrah compound in occupied East Jerusalem.
“Let me be clear: UNRWA premises are United Nations premises,” he said. “They are inviolable and immune from any form of interference.”
Guterres described public threats against UNRWA staff as “utterly abhorrent,” and said Israel was obliged under international law to respect the privileges and immunities of the UN.
He also reiterated that an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory was essential.
“There is only one viable route (to peace): the two-state solution, in line with international law and relevant United Nations resolutions,” he said, as he called on the international community to act “with clarity, unity and determination” on the issue.
