Pakistan has used one of its unmanned aircraft to kill militants in its restive tribal areas for the first time, the country’s army has claimed.
After years of protesting against US drone strikes on Pakistan’s territory, Asim Bajwa, the army’s spokesman, said on Monday that an aircraft known as the Burraq had bombed a “terrorist compound” in Shawal, killing three “high-profile terrorists”.
The strike means Pakistan has joined a small club of nations, including the US, UK and Israel, to have successfully used a remote-controlled aircraft to kill their enemies.
The Shawal valley is located in North Waziristan, the semi-autonomous tribal area bordering Afghanistan that became a byword for militancy after it was taken over by numerous armed groups.
It has been billed as the venue for the final showdown of Zarb-e-Azb, the military operation launched by the army against the wishes of the government in June 2014 to tackle militant sanctuaries in North Waziristan.
There have been more CIA drone strikes in North Waziristan than anywhere else in the world, with many activists blaming them for the deaths of civilians – claims that were often impossible to verify, given official US silence on secret operations and the closed-off nature of Pakistan’s frontier with Afghanistan.
It has been equally difficult to confirm Pakistan’s claims about the success of its air war, or any details of the men killed in Shawal.
Despite making extensive use of conventional airstrikes by manned aircraft, Pakistan claims not to have killed civilians during Operation Zarb-e-Azb.
But with the campaign against domestic terrorists proving popular, there has been almost no public dissent over of the efficacy of air strikes, while the once ferocious criticism of continuing US drone strikes has almost entirely disappeared.
Pakistan announced in March that it had successfully developed the Burraq, as well as a laser-guided missile known as the Barq, after the US refused to share its advanced drone technology.
Overcoming the numerous technical difficulties involved in arming a drone has been hailed as a major national achievement, with the Burraq one of the stars of this year’s military parade to mark the country’s national day.
Some defence analysts have questioned how much work was genuinely done by Pakistani engineers. Jane’s Defence Weekly reported that the Burraq bore a “striking resemblance” to a drone produced by China, a close ally of Pakistan.
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