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LONDON: The co-founder of a pro-Palestinian campaign group sought on Monday to challenge the British government’s decision to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws, a move her lawyers said had “the hallmarks of an authoritarian and blatant abuse of power.”

Huda Ammori, who helped found Palestine Action in 2020, is asking London’s High Court to give the go-ahead for a full challenge to the group’s proscription, which was made on the grounds it committed or participated in acts of terrorism.

Earlier this month, the High Court refused Ammori’s application to pause the ban and, following an unsuccessful last-ditch appeal, Palestine Action’s proscription came into effect just after midnight on July 5.

Proscription makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

Ammori’s lawyer Raza Husain said Palestine Action is the first direct action group to be banned as a terror group, a move he argued was inconsistent with “the honorable history of civil disobedience on conscientious grounds in our country.”

Dozens have been arrested for holding placards purportedly supporting the group since the ban and Ammori’s lawyers say protesters expressing support for the Palestinian cause have also been subject to increased scrutiny from police officers.

Britain’s interior minister Yvette Cooper, however, has said violence and criminal damage have no place in legitimate protest and that Palestine Action’s activities – including breaking into a military base and damaging two planes – justify proscription.

Palestine Action has increasingly targeted Israel-linked companies in Britain, often spraying red paint, blocking entrances or damaging equipment.

The group accuses the British government of complicity in what it says are Israeli war crimes in its ongoing bombardment of Gaza.

Israel has repeatedly denied committing abuses in its war in Gaza, which began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

ISLAMABAD: Islamist militants in Pakistan have started using commercially acquired quadcopter drones to drop bombs on security forces in the country’s northwest, police said, a potentially dangerous development in the volatile region.

The use of such drones, which are powered by four rotors allowing for vertical take-off and landing, is worrying the overstretched and under-equipped police force, the frontline against militant attacks, officials said.

Two quadcopters sent by the militants targeted a police station earlier this month, killing a woman and injuring three children in a nearby house in Bannu district, said police officer Muhammad Anwar.

A drone spotted over another police station on Saturday was shot down with assault rifles, he said. It was armed with a mortar shell, he said.

At least eight such drone attacks have targeted police and security forces in Bannu and adjacent areas in the last two and a half months, he said.

Regional police chief Sajjad Khan said militants were still trying to master the use of the drones.

“The militants have acquired these modern tools, but they are in the process of experimentation and that’s why they can’t hit their targets accurately,” he added. The militants are using the quadcopters to drop improvised explosive devices or mortar shells on their targets, five security officials said. They said these explosive devices were packed with ball bearings or pieces of iron.

Provincial police chief Zulfiqar Hameed said the police lacked resources to meet the new challenge.

“We do not have equipment to counter the drones,” he told the local Geo News channel on Sunday. “The militants are better equipped than we are,” he said.

No militant group has claimed responsibility for the drone strikes.

The main militant group operating in the northwest is the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban. But they denied using the drones. “We are trying to acquire this technology,” a TTP spokesman told Reuters.

In 2024, Islamist militants carried out 335 countrywide attacks, killing 520 people, according to the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, an independent organization.

In recent weeks, thousands of residents from the border region have staged protests, aimed against both the attacks by militants and what they fear is an offensive planned by the army, according to a statement issued by the demonstrators.

They said they feared that a military operation against the militants would displace them from their homes.

A sweeping operation against militants in 2014 was preceded by a forced evacuation of hundreds of thousands of residents. They spent months, and in many cases years, away from their homes.

Pakistan’s army did not respond to a request for comment on whether an operation was planned.