ISLAMABAD: A drone attack killed three people and injured 10 others of a family in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, police said on Thursday.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Pakistani officials have said in the past that armed groups, particularly the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), are increasingly using commercial drones modified to drop explosives, alongside other weapons, to attack Pakistani law enforcers.
The drone attack was reported in the Damadola area of KP’s Bajaur district, which borders Afghanistan, on the night of July 1-2, according to district police spokesman Muhammad Israr.
“Three persons were reported dead and ten others were injured in the drone attack,” Israr told Arab News. “All the victims belonged to the same family.”
The deceased included a five-year-old girl, a 15-year-old boy and a thirty-year-old man. The injured persons were shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) Khar in Bajaur.
Israr said investigations were underway to determine where the attack was launched from.
Bajaur has witnessed multiple incidents of suspected drone or quadcopter attacks in recent months. One such attack killed a child and injured a woman in Wara Mamond area of the district on June 28, authorities said.
In April, militants killed one police officer and injured a constable in a quadcopter attack in KP’s Hangu district, a police official said.
Separately, Pakistan’s military said on Wednesday it had intercepted and destroyed four drones launched from Afghanistan into the southwestern Balochistan province, amid a series of cross-border incursions over a surge in militancy in Pakistan’s western regions bordering Afghanistan in recent years.
