Britain’s intelligence services appear to have been kept in the dark about Saturday’s US missile attack on a house in northwest Pakistan that reportedly killed Rashid Rauf, a top British al-Qaeda suspect.
Although his death will take a few days to be confirmed officially, the strike by a Predator drone, armed with Hellfire missiles and precision-guided bombs, was the first time that the US had targeted a British suspect hiding in the lawless North Waziristan region of Pakistan.
Two senior MPs yesterday demanded to know whether the British Government had been given notice of the planned attack, which was a CIA operation controlled from a US military base in Nevada.
Patrick Mercer, Tory MP for Newark, said the attack had “ultimately led to the execution of a British subject”. He called for a clear statement from the Government to explain what was known about the planned attack. Andrew Dismore, Labour chairman of the parliamentary Human Rights Committee, wanted to know whether British intelligence services had been consulted by the Americans.
Senior British officials, however, made it clear that intelligence of such sensitivity was not automatically shared by the Americans, adding that Saturday’s strike was a strictly US operation.
The reported killing of Rauf and four other terrorist suspects, including an Egyptian called Abu Zubair alMasri, appears to have dealt a serious blow to al-Qaeda’s network operating from Pakistan’s tribal region.
Pakistani authorities confirmed that Rauf was the main target of Saturday’s attack on a suspected militant hideout in the border village of Ali Khel in North Waziristan. Information about Rauf’s death was based on intercepted communications between militants in the area. The bodies of the five people killed in the attack were removed by local militants who cordoned off the area, making investigation difficult.
Three Hellfire missiles were fired on a mud compound belonging to Khaliq Noor, a tribal elder in Ali Khel village. A few days ago a US Predator attack killed Abdullah Azzam al-Saudi, a senior al-Qaeda member. Six others died in the attack in northwestern Pakistan. Officials from Pakistan and Western government representatives said that eight of the twenty mostwanted men had been killed in the recent US missile raids, bolstering Washington’s claim that the strikes in northwestern Pakistan have crippled alQaeda’s capacity to launch another terrorist attack on the West.
US forces based in Afghanistan have carried out about 24 missile attacks in northwestern Pakistan since August, reflecting American impatience at Islamabad’s efforts to curb militants on its own soil.
British intelligence sources say the reluctance on the part of the Pakistani authorities to clamp down on Kashmiri militant organisations is still enabling al-Qaeda to recruit young British Muslims for attacks on the UK.
About 400,000 British Pakistanis are estimated to travel between the UK and Pakistan each year. A disproportionate number can trace their lineage back to Kashmir. For the small number seeking a gateway to alQaeda, Kashmiri militant organisations are the obvious first port of call.
