Pakistan: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa And Rise Of The Quadcopter – Analysis
By SATP
By Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
On July 19, 2025, unidentified terrorists attacked Miryan Police Station in Bannu District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) with a quadcopter drone rigged with explosives. However, the no casualties were reported.
On July 18, 2025, a Police Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) and a constable were injured when the Miryan Police Station in Bannu District was struck by terrorists with a quadcopter drone. Bannu District Police Officer (DPO) Saleem Abbas Kulachi disclosed that this was the sixth time the same Police Station had been attacked by quadcopters, since the terrorists had started using quadcopters to target Police infrastructure and personnel.
On July 10, 2025, a Police constable was injured when terrorists used a quadcopter drone to target a Security Force (SF) vehicle in the Nurar area of Bannu District. A Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorist was also injured during a clash when terrorists were trying to establish a check post to check vehicles. The Police and Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) were hit by a quadcopter drone, after which the vehicle they were travelling in was damaged. The vehicle was then set on fire by TTP terrorists, after which an intensive battle took place when re-enforcements arrived. Once again a mortar from a quadcopter drone was used to target the Police. The attackers managed to escape after the incident.
On July 9, 2025, one person was killed while three children were injured after terrorists carried out two quadcopter drone attacks in Bannu District. In the first quadcopter drone attack, one woman was killed while three children were injured, including two of the woman’s children. In the second quadcopter drone attack, solar panels on the rooftop of the Maryan Police Station were damaged. Police personnel, however, remained safe.
On July 3, 2025, a watchman was killed and another injured when unidentified terrorists were trying to fly a quadcopter drone for surveillance of a Police Station in the Hawaid area of Bannu District. The watchmen flashed a light, spotting the terrorists, who opened fire at them.
On June 29, 2025, a woman was killed when a quadcopter drone with explosives used by the terrorists crashed into the kitchen of the paramilitary battalion headquarters in Ladha Town of South Waziristan District. The accompanying terrorist attack was repulsed after a heavy exchange of firing.
On June 29, 2021, a quadcopter drone with explosives crashed into the solar panels on the roof of the Miryan Police Stations in Bannu District. An unnamed senior Police official disclosed that the use of quadcopter drones by non-state actors had increased manifold in the preceding months.
On June 20, 2021, a quadcopter drone attack in the Dashka area of Makin tehsil (revenue unit) in North Waziristan District, resulted in the death of one child and injuries to at least six children.
Thus, during the month preceding July 20, 2025, at least eight terrorist-orchestrated quadcopter drone attacks were reported, resulting in four fatalities and 13 injured, while just another three attacks with three fatalities were reported during the preceding months of 2025. Over the past year, multiple quadcopter drone attacks have been reported across KP, in which remotely operated drones were used to drop explosives. Though no group has so far claimed any quadcopter drone attack, the Army has blamed TTP and its allied groups for these incidents.
Quadcopter drones can be used to carry various payloads, with the specific capacity depending on the drone’s size and design. Consumer-grade quadcopters can typically handle payloads up to a few kilograms, while larger, industrial-grade models can carry significantly more, even up to hundreds of kilograms.
In the tribal areas of Pakistan, where the fight against terrorism has been continuing since two decades, the use of quadcopter drones, both by the military and the militants, is a recent trend. Though the Pakistan Army blames militants for using quadcopters to target SFs, the military has also been exploiting the technology in its counter-terrorism operations. The first media-reported incident of the use of a quadcopter was on October 21, 2024, when at least 15 terrorists were killed in an SF quadcopter strike on TTP and Lashkar-i-Islam (LI) hideouts in the hilly terrain of Peer Mela in the Tirah Valley of Khyber District. Though there was no official word about the exact number of injured militants, unnamed officials, quoting their own contacts, claimed that about 15 terrorists, including a local ‘commander’, were injured in the strike.
Since then, drones have become one of the Army’s preferred mediums in counter-terrorism operations in the difficult terrain of the tribal areas. Some of the notable Army drone attacks against terrorists include:
On February 16, 2025, a local ‘commander’ of the Hafiz Gul Bahadar (HGB) faction of TTP, Shaheen Wazir, was killed in the Shaktu area of South Waziristan District in an SF quadcopter strike.
On February 12, 2025, at least five terrorists were killed in an SF projectile strike by quadcopter, in the Draban area of Dera Ismail Khan District.
On November 29, 2024, SFs used a quadcopter to neutralise seven terrorists during an operation in the Bakka Khel area of Bannu District in KP.
Meanwhile, the use of quadcopter drones has proved a double-edged sword, as a disturbing pattern of civilian collateral damage emerges during counter-terrorism operations since March 2025. On March 29, 2025, a drone strike in the Katalang area of Mardan District killed 11 civilians, including two children. Local witnesses attributed the strike to SFs, but the Government denied the use of drones in the operation. Again, on May 19, 2025, a quadcopter attack in the Hurmuz village of North Waziristan District killed four children from a single family and left five others seriously injured. Villagers alleged that the attack was conducted by SFs, but the military and the Federal Ministry of Interior denied SF involvement and put the blame on TTP and its allied groups.
On June 25, 2025, the South Asia chapter of Amnesty International issued a strongly worded statement against the use of drones in civilian areas, and has called upon the Pakistani state to initiate independent and transparent investigations into each incident. On the basis of such investigations, those responsible should be prosecuted in accordance with national and international law, and compensation and rehabilitation should be provided to the affected families.
Isabelle Lasseur, Deputy Regional Director, Amnesty International, observed: “Drone and quadcopter attacks resulting in civilian deaths constitute a serious violation of international humanitarian law. When homes, playgrounds, and ordinary people become targets, the legal and moral implications are severe.”
A worrisome issue in these drone attacks is the recurring pattern of child casualties. However, while the Pakistan Government seeks to shed responsibility, terming these causalities ‘collateral damage’, the Army claimed SFs had been “falsely implicated”. After the March 29 attack, in which 11 civilians were killed, instead of taking responsibility, the Provincial Government issued a press note claiming that a counter-terrorism operation had been conducted in the remote hilltop area of Katlang, based on intelligence regarding the presence of armed militants using the location as a hideout and transit point, though it conceded that “non-combatants” also died in the operation.
Similarly, after the May 19 incident in which four children were killed, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) asserted: “Following a tragic incident on May 19, 2025, in the general area of Mir Ali, North Waziristan district, which regrettably resulted in civilian casualties, unfounded and misleading allegations have been circulated by certain quarters, falsely implicating Pakistan’s security forces.”
The harsh reality of drone attacks in KP is that, while the State remains evasive on fixing accountability for SF operations, the security establishment remains clueless on how to deal with quadcopter attacks by the terrorists. On March 27, 2025, KP Inspector General of Police (IGP) Zulfiqar Hameed stated that his department lacked modern equipment to fight terrorism, the toughest challenge the province faces. IGP Hameed revealing that terrorists were using advanced weaponry, including quadcopters, in the province, which the local Police were unable to counter due to lack of equipment: “They [terrorists] have acquired the latest US weapons and modern gadgets. They’re carrying out quadcopter attacks. If we don’t advance, how will we fight back, since we don’t have anti-quadcopter technology?” He added that terrorist attacks could no longer be countered with the help of conventional weapons, as terrorists were using modern equipment and gadgets to carry out operations.
Clearly, till the Government and SFs find solutions to counter this new trend of attacks from the skies, the tribal areas of Pakistan will witness more death, including mounting collateral damage, in the conflict in KP.
- Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management
SATP, or the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) publishes the South Asia Intelligence Review, and is a product of The Institute for Conflict Management, a non-Profit Society set up in 1997 in New Delhi, and which is committed to the continuous evaluation and resolution of problems of internal security in South Asia. The Institute was set up on the initiative of, and is presently headed by, its President, Mr. K.P.S. Gill, IPS (Retd).
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