This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Lauren Brown Fellowship.
Tirah Valley, Pakistan – After three months of fighting for her life, five-year-old Aliya died on October 8 — the innocent casualty of a summer drone strike that shattered her quiet village in Pakistan’s troubled Tirah Valley. She was the youngest of six children of Adnan, a 35-year-old tractor driver.
On July 19, she and a group of children were playing in the sunshine when the drone strike took place. A single shot to her head left her unconscious and paralyzed, and several classmates wounded.
Since that day, Adnan poured 800,000 PKR (about $2830) into medical care, sinking deeper into debt without even fully knowing the sum.
“I don’t know how much more I will spend on my child,” he had told Dissent Today just days before his daughter’s death.
Until the very end, Adnan clung to hope. “Even if no one helps us, I want to see my daughter walk and smile again,” he said.
“I will do whatever I can so she can play and talk with us like before.”
But in the end, that hope slipped away.
The drone strike that killed Aliya in a small town in Pakistan’s restive northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was part of Islamabad’s fresh counter-terrorism strategy under Operation Azm-e-Istehkam (literally, “Resolve for Stability”).
Launched in June 2024, this reinvigorated campaign includes frequent use of drone strikes – including both high-altitude drones and quad-copters — to carry out intelligence-led, precision strikes in the country’s border regions.
But drone warfare is not new here.
Since the early 2000s, the United States has carried out hundreds of drone strikes targeting militants, especially in the then-Federally Administered Tribal Areas (now merged into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), often provoking debates about civilian harm and accountability.
The strikes, directed under various command structures including the CIA, left deep scars.
The first known drone strike in Pakistan took place on June 19, 2004. Over time, what began as periodic covert operations escalated into a prolonged campaign. Between the Bush and the first Trump presidencies, at least 414 strikes were documented, mostly under former U.S. President Barack Obama. Estimates place civilian deaths and injuries between 2,366 and 3,702.
Now, a new wave of drone strikes is once again claiming civilian lives — this time carried out not by the U.S., but by the Pakistani military, with little public debate.
Last Saturday, less than two months after Aliya’s death, another drone — a quadcopter — struck a wedding ceremony in the same Tirah Valley, injuring eight people, including children.
Lawmakers in Pakistan’s National Assembly strongly condemned the latest strike. Voices from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan called the drone attack an “insult” to the province and demanded a commission to investigate.
Human rights groups say the strikes, increasingly carried out using quadcopter and other UAVs, have killed scores of civilians.
In June, Amnesty International reported that at least 17 civilians, including five children, have died in these operations in 2025. Local protests erupted after a suspected quadcopter attack in South Waziristan killed a child and wounded others that month.
According to reports, both the military and militant groups are carrying out these strikes. The devices are used either for surgical, short-range attacks or to drop explosives on specific targets. Unlike earlier campaigns, the newer strikes are frequently occurring closer to densely populated civilian areas.
Local human rights activist Alamzeb Mahsood, who has been documenting these attacks, told Dissent Today that most civilian casualties result from military operations. He explained that militant groups usually know their own targets, but the military often struggles to locate them precisely — a failure that leads to the deaths of civilians, including women and children.
On the morning of October 23, a man and his daughter lost their lives in what appeared to be a quadcopter drone attack.
Earlier, on September 22, more than 20 civilians, including women and children, were killed in Tirah when bombs allegedly dropped by aircraft struck residential neighborhoods.
Security sources claimed the blast came from militants’ own stockpiles. However, local leaders and activists insisted it was a strike on unarmed civilians.
Then-Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur responded with a compensation announcement of ₨10 million to each victim’s family, calling the deaths “regrettable and condemnable.”
Mahsood has documented around 45 drone strikes in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2025, many of which were initially denied by authorities and only acknowledged — often with compensation for affected families — once independent proof emerged.
He notes that many more strikes likely go unreported, especially in remote districts like Waziristan, Bajaur, Bannu, and Khyber, because these areas are difficult to access.
According to residents interviewed by Dissent Today, there was no warning before many of these strikes — they came without notice and hit civilians, including women and children.
A senior security official, speaking anonymously, argued that local resistance complicates matters: militant groups often use homes in targeted areas as shelter, making precise operations difficult and raising the risk to civilians.
Lives Shattered, Homes Abandoned
Shamshad Khan, 23, lives in Loi Mamund, Bajaur. On August 30, he was injured in a drone strike — he lost the use of one leg. His younger sister was also wounded; she now suffers from frequent headaches.
The family fled immediately, despite previous military assurances their home was safe. Local elders had asked authorities about safety in advance, and were told they had nothing to fear.
“There are moments when I think, why did we trust them?” Khan says. There was no official aid. To reach medical help, he was carried by neighbors to a road with no vehicles, then transported by bicycle to where help was available.
The Psychological Cost
Far beyond the physical injuries, survivors describe a haunting toll: fear, nightmares, anxiety, a sense that safety is a lie.
12‑year‑old Ishaal from Kambar Khel in Tirah Valley is among them. A drone struck her home; she and other family members were wounded.
“I used to dream the Taliban were coming and killing us,” she told Dissent Today. Her mother would wake her, hold her, and tell her she was safe. But the fear remains, rooted in her sleep and waking hours alike.
No precise government statistics track these new drone and quadcopter strikes. Local authorities say they lack comprehensive data, making accountability difficult.
The Counter‑Terrorism Department, when pressed, confirmed to Dissent Today that they do not maintain exact numbers for many of the incidents.
Without clarity, victims are left without recourse.
After last week’s strike, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders, who head the provincial government, warned that any civilian casualties would be unacceptable — and threatened to file a case against the federal government if no militants were proven to have been present during the strike.
Back in Bar Qambar Khel, in the heart of Tirah Valley, Aliya’s father now lives under a heavy shadow of grief — his suffering, and that of countless other families, is still ignored by Pakistan’s mainstream politicians and media.
The writer is a freelance journalist based in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan. She writes about women’s rights, religious freedom, climate change, refugees, and human rights issues across Pakistan, specifically in conflict zones.
