Pakistan installs fishing nets at security outposts to block drone attacks

Hangu, Pakistan – Police serviceman Fayyaz Khan and his colleagues ducked for screen arsenic drones carrying explosives rained them down connected their checkpost successful northwest Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa state this year.

The April 16 onslaught was claimed by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), commonly known arsenic the Pakistan Taliban, and its fighters past opened occurrence from each sides of the Sarki Piyala constabulary checkpost successful Hangu district, astir 30km (18 miles) from the borderline with Afghanistan and a hotbed of deadly attacks by equipped groups, chiefly the TTP.

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The confrontation lasted astir 7 hours, killed the operator of an armoured conveyance and injured a constable, Khan, a 40-year-old constabulary inspector, recalled.

“There was a large woody of fearfulness due to the fact that we were successful the mediate of a battle. At that moment, we did not adjacent cognize whether we would marque it backmost location alive,” Khan told Al Jazeera.

To support against specified attacks, the constabulary successful Hangu came up with an unlikely, low-cost solution – sportfishing nets strung respective metres overhead betwixt the checkpost’s rooftops and perimeter walls, forming a benignant of aerial ceiling.

Fayyaz Khan wears a bullet-resistant vest astatine a checkpost successful Hangu district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan [Manzoor Khan/Al Jazeera]

Simple successful operation and resembling what fishermen usage for their work, the netting was archetypal installed 2 months ago, according to the section police. Since then, Khan said, nary drone attacks person taken spot astatine Sarki Piyala.

“If a drone comes implicit the checkpoint, determination is simply a anticipation that it could get caught successful the nett and beryllium defused oregon stopped,” helium said arsenic his colleagues, strapped into bullet-resistant vests and holding guns successful their hands, kept ticker beneath a canopy of achromatic mesh patched unneurotic with enactment and wire.

“Even if a drone does not get caught and explodes supra the net, the harm is expected to beryllium overmuch little due to the fact that astir of the shrapnel and fragments would beryllium dispersed successful the aerial alternatively than falling straight onto the crushed wherever the constabulary unit are positioned.”

A modular checkpost tin beryllium covered with specified nets for astir 400,000 Pakistani rupees ($1,435), Hangu territory constabulary serviceman Tariq Habib told Al Jazeera.

“The constabulary person introduced the netting strategy astatine susceptible constabulary stations and checkposts to trim the interaction of drone and quadcopter attacks,” Habib said, adding that much nets were being installed astatine constabulary stations crossed the district.

He said the constabulary successful Hangu person asked for further backing from the provincial authorities to grow the programme and their petition is nether review.

A spokesperson for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa constabulary said the nets person been installed astatine checkpoints and constabulary posts successful astatine slightest 5 different susceptible districts: Kohat, Karak, Bannu, Lakki Marwat and Dera Ismail Khan. Even subject outposts astatine immoderate sites successful the state person deployed the antidrone netting system.

A protective sportfishing nett has been strung up astatine a constabulary checkpost successful Hangu [Manzoor Khan/Al Jazeera]

The sportfishing nets person been enactment up successful effect to a displacement successful the tactics of equipped groups, which are pairing gunfire and mortars with drones and quadcopters.

Pakistan has seen an summation successful equipped attacks successful caller years, chiefly targeting the constabulary and the military, with galore of them claimed by the TTP, which says it is warring for a Taliban-style, religious-driven authorities successful Pakistan.

Pakistani officials person repeatedly accused Kabul’s Taliban authorities of providing the TTP a harmless haven connected its ungraded and person demanded that it forestall cross-border attacks into Pakistan. Kabul has denied the accusations and called the attacks Islamabad’s home information problem.

In Hangu, the deadliest of specified attacks happened connected July 29 erstwhile attackers stormed a constabulary outpost with quadcopters rigged with bombs earlier launching a crushed ambush, sidesplitting astatine slightest 11 constabulary officers and wounding 28. Fifteen attackers were besides killed successful the hours-long assault, claimed by the TTP.

On September 20, different speech of occurrence successful Hangu killed six soldiers and 8 attackers, according to the Pakistani army.

That onslaught came 2 days aft different equipped group, called Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan, killed 23 people, including 16 constabulary officers, and bombed a mosque successful coordinated attacks successful Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Kohat district.

Police said they person recorded astatine slightest 16 attacks successful Hangu this year, making it 1 of the astir delicate districts successful the province.

But constabulary serviceman Zeeshan Khan said nary drone oregon quadcopter attacks person occurred astatine Sarki Piyala and the adjacent Baliamena checkposts since the sportfishing nets went up.

He said the nets supply “an other furniture of security” to constabulary personnel.

“If an onslaught does instrumentality place, the arrangements we person made tin trim the imaginable damage,” helium said, estimating that the measures could trim imaginable losses by 40 to 50 percent.

‘Cheap ploy’

The predominant equipped attacks person reshaped the regular lives of the radical successful Hangu who unrecorded adjacent the constabulary checkposts.

Mohammad Usama, a 28-year-old societal activistic successful Baliamena, said the attacks often punctual families to propulsion children retired of school.

“There is ever a fearfulness that a stray slug oregon thing other could deed our children, brothers, cousins,” Usama said.

“We conscionable commune that Allah ends coercion successful our state truthful that we tin unrecorded peacefully successful our area, our children tin proceed their acquisition and radical tin spell to enactment without fear.”

Usama said since the sportfishing nett was enactment up successful his area, helium has noticed a diminution successful ambushes.

Fishing nets are stretched implicit and astir a constabulary checkpost successful Hangu [Manzoor Khan/Al Jazeera]

But information experts said the strategy whitethorn connection a “false consciousness of security”.

“Deploying nets astatine peculiar locations is an immature, inexpensive ploy due to the fact that constabulary stations are not needfully ever the target,” Imtiaz Gul, enforcement manager of the Islamabad-based Centre for Research and Security Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“The drones are intended to deed salient locations and make melodramatic optics.”

He said the much pressing question was whether Pakistani information institutions person the capableness to intercept drones arsenic soon arsenic they instrumentality to the air.

“Drones are a root of scare and terror, and they tin make this intended spectacle whenever they are capable to deed a strategic, important nationalist location,” helium said.

Fida Adeel, a Peshawar-based expert specialising successful counterterrorism and security, said the sportfishing nets are not a caller concept. He traced them to camouflage nets utilized by the subject to conceal their equipment. More recently, helium said, they were adapted successful Ukraine arsenic a mode to intercept Russian drones.

Adeel cautioned that the effectiveness of a sportfishing nett against explosive-laden drones depends connected its plan and deployment. He besides questioned whether the constabulary estimates of “40 to 50 percent protection” could beryllium verified without real-world trials.

“The grade of extortion tin lone beryllium determined done due testing,” helium said.

In response, Abdul Salam Khalid, a spokesperson for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police, told Al Jazeera they conducted a ceremonial proceedings of the netting strategy successful Kohat. He said an explosive was dropped connected 1 of the nets during the trial, but it did not explode.

Back successful Hangu, constabulary inspector Khan said helium knows that having sportfishing nets implicit his caput is nary foolproof solution. For him and his colleagues, helium said, the nets connection immoderate reassurance, adjacent if they cannot destruct the risks they look portion connected duty.

“We cannot accidental that the netting strategy provides implicit protection,” Khan said.

“We stay prepared for an attack. … If defending our state and our radical requires america to marque the eventual sacrifice, we volition not hesitate. and we volition not measurement backmost from our duty.”

This nonfiction is published successful collaboration with Egab.