Pakistan kills three terrorists with first native drone flight

Military officials in Pakistan announced on Sunday the maiden voyage of the country’s first natively developed combat drone, which killed three high-profile militants near the border with Afghanistan. The missiles blasted a suspected terrorist compound in the Shawal valley of the Waziristan tribal region, according to a statement from Pakistan’s army. Pakistan’s military christened the drone the Burraq, or Prophet’s Horse, inspired by Islamic tradition and Persian lore of a winged stallion with a human face.

Pakistan’s creation of its own unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) ushers the country into an elite class of a few nations with combat drones, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel, according to data from the New America Foundation.

In March, Pakistan disclosed the existence of the Burraq drone and announced it had been test fired with success, though little was known about the vehicle’s actual armament or capabilities. The Guardian reported Pakistan lauded the successful development of a native drone as a “great national achievement.”

Pakistan has long battled the presence of Taliban militants hidden away in North Waziristan, a tribal region bordering Afghanistan. The Pakistan-Afghan border also offers refuge for loyalists of the Islamic State, according to members of the Afghan parliament. Until this week, the United States has monopolized drone strikes targeting militants in Pakistan’s tribal regions. North Waziristan has been pelted with more CIA drone strikes than any other place on earth, according to a recent report in The Guardian.

While drone strikes are undeniably effective and strategic, and generally cause minimal civilian casualties, they remain controversial with the Pakistani public. The government has occasionally decried U.S.-led missile activity as an unwelcome invasion of national sovereignty. Frustration between the nations mounted when the United States refused to share its drone development technology with Pakistan, a stance former Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf labeled “undeclared technological apartheid.”

Despite a lack of help from America, Pakistan got its hands on missile technology somewhere else. According to a recentReuters report, analysts say the Burraq drone bears an uncanny likeness to UAVs created by China.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.