Pak Using Drone Campaign Inside Its Borders, But With A Collateral Damage

Pakistan, during a brief military clash with India, used drones to attack civilian areas - showing off their high-tech weapons. But little was it known, the country has been running a deadly drone campaign to monitor and strike terrorists within its borders for years, a report by The New York Times said. This, however, comes with its own collateral damage: civilian deaths.

While Pakistani officials have said that drone operations have become significantly more effective and precise, some reports of attacks tell a different story.

Earlier this year, the Pakistani Security Forces targeted a terrorist hideout with drones in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing an unspecified number of "high-value" terrorists. However, some civilians were also killed in the strike, with the provincial government suggesting that women and children were among the victims. Late last month, at least 20 people were injured in a suspected drone strike on a crowd watching a volleyball match in Lower South Waziristan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa bordering Afghanistan.

Last month, four children were reportedly killed after a drone strike in North Waziristan. Officials blamed the Pakistani Taliban for the attack, but the political opposition condemned it as a consequence of the government's flawed security strategy, the NYT report said.

Pakistan is among the four countries that are using drones against terrorists within their borders. The other three countries are Iraq, Nigeria, and Turkey. Despite this, the country's government has not yet officially acknowledged the role of drones in its counterinsurgency, the report said.

Drone campaign goes online

The Pakistani security officials are reportedly becoming more vocal about the drone strikes online - mainly to put down the criticism.

A video that recently went viral showed armed men (with what officials said were Pakistani Taliban terrorists) trying to breach a barbed-wire perimeter at night when a drone strike hit them. Officials reportedly said that the video was recorded in 2024. Another video shows a drone strike targeting Taliban-affiliated terrorists in a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, which borders Afghanistan in northwestern Pakistan.

While the videos remain unverified, many of them were posted by pro-military accounts, the NYT reported.

According to the report, the Pakistani government is backing the digital drone campaign.

US drone campaign in Pakistan

For many years, the US conducted drone strikes inside Pakistan that targeted Al Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban, and affiliated groups. The first known US strike took place in 2004, in which a prominent Taliban commander, Nek Muhammad, died. According to the NYT report, the George Bush administration had allowed 48 drone strikes in Pakistan, while Barack Obama authorised 353. The last recorded drone strike in the Pakistan borders by the US was in 2016, in which the chief of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, was killed.

US President Donald Trump had reportedly ordered 13 strikes in Pakistan during his first term.

However, no drone strikes by the US were reported after 2018.

Pakistan and terrorism

The Pakistani government faces one of the most severe terrorist threats in the world, with the country ranking second as the most affected by terrorism in the world. Some of the deadliest terror organisations include: the Pakistani Taliban and the Baloch Liberation Army.

Pakistan was placed on the FATF's grey list in June 2018. Countries that are considered safe havens for terror funding and money laundering are put on this list.

Pakistan was said to be lacking a comprehensive and coordinated risk-based approach in combating money laundering and terror financing - following which the FATF urged Islamabad to implement a 34-point action plan by the end of 2019. This deadline was then extended due to the coronavirus pandemic. Between 2020 to 2022, Pakistan carried out measures to its anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism laws.

In September 2022, the FATF conducted an onsite visit to Pakistan to confirm the completion of the action plan. Islamabad was removed from the list in October 2022.

India, responding to FATF's move, had said that Pakistan must continue to take credible action against terrorism.