1 dead, 3 children injured in KPs Bannu after quadcopter attacks by militants: police

One person was killed while three were injured after militants carried out two quadcopter attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bannu district on Wednesday, according to police.

The incident comes following reports of multiple quadcopter and drone attacks in KP and Balochistan over the past year. In March, at least 11 people were killed in Mardan in what locals insisted was a drone strike, while in May, a suspected quadcopter munitions drop claimed the lives of four children and injured five others in North Waziristan District’s Mir Ali tehsil. The military clarified that security forces were “falsely implicated” in the incident and that it was carried out by the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Bannu District Police Officer (DPO) Saleem Abbas Kulachi told Dawn.com, “Two quadcopter incidents occurred in the district today. In the first quadcopter attack by militants, one woman was killed while three children were injured, including two of the woman’s children.”

The woman’s body and the injured people were taken to the hospital for medical assistance, he added.

DPO Kulachi said that another quadcopter attack occurred where terrorists attacked the Meryan police station, damaging the station’s solar panels on the rooftop.

He said, “The police personnel remained safe in the attack,” adding that it was the third such militant attack on the same police station.

“A search operation was underway in the area to track down the terrorists,” he added.

Pakistan has witnessed an uptick in terror activities recently, especially in KP and Balochistan, after the banned TTP ended its ceasefire with the government in November 2022.

Bannu has seen several militant attacks over the past several months.

On Saturday, one person was killed and three others were injured after armed assailants attacked a jirga in the district.

In March, 16 terrorists were killed while five soldiers were martyred as security forces responded to a terrorist attack on the Bannu Cantonment.

The incident resulted in the deaths of 13 civilians and injured 32 others after “severe destruction” of a mosque and a residential building due to the suicide blasts, causing the perimeter wall to partially collapse.