Peshawar:
Terrorists have started using quadcopter drones commercially acquired to release bombs in security forces in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, police said, a potentially dangerous development in the volatile province.
The use of such drones, which operate with four rotors that allow take -off and vertical landing, is worrying overload and underutilized police, the first line against terrorist attacks, authorities said.
Two quadcopters sent by the terrorists attacked a police station earlier this month, killing a woman and hurting three children in a nearby house in the Bannu district, said Police officer Muhammad Anwar.
A drone seen on another police station on Saturday was shot down with assault rifles, he said. He was armed with a mortar shell, he said. At least eight drones attacks of this type have attacked the police and security forces in the areas of Bannu and adjacent in the last two and a half months, he said.
Regional Police Chief Sajad Khan said that terrorists were still trying to master the use of drones. “The terrorists have acquired these modern tools, but they are in the experimentation process and that is why they cannot achieve their objectives with precision,” he added.
They are using quadcopters to release improvised explosive devices or mortar shells in their objectives, five security officials said. They said that these explosive devices were full of ball bearings or iron pieces.
KP IG Zulfiqar Hameed said the police lacked resources to face the new challenge. “We have no teams to counteract drones,” he told a local news channel on Sunday. “Terrorists are better equipped than us,” he said.
