Afugitive British militant was among victims of a missile attack believed carried out by a US pilotless aircraft on November 21 on a militant hideout in Pakistan’s restive tribal region along the border with Afghanistan, Pakistani media reports were quoted by Deutsche Presse Agentur (dpa). The attack killed four people and injured six, Pakistani intelligence officials said. Local media reports said Rashid Rauf and another al-Qaeda terrorist, were killed.

Rauf, a British citizen of Pakistani origin, was once suspected of involvement in an alleged plot to blow up trans-Atlantic jetliners, and had been on the run after escaping Pakistani custody. Two hellfire missiles demolished the house of local Taliban leader Khaliq Noor in Ali Khel village, 14 kilometres west of Mir Ali in the tribal district of North Waziristan, a known sanctuary of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. “According to our information, at least two of the four killed are foreigners,” said an intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.

Local television reported that an al-Qaeda-linked British terrorist suspect had died in the attack. The Urdu-language Aaj, ARY and Geo news channels all cited official sources as saying that Rauf and another al-Qaeda terrorist were killed. However, a civilian government official in North Waziristan said “the report was 85 percent confirmed” and said investigations were still ongoing. Rauf’s name was mentioned in connection with a plot discovered on August 10, 2006, simultaneously to blow up seven airliners flying from Britain to the United States and Canada with homemade liquid explosives disguised as soft drinks.

The reports of the arrests of eight Islamic militants by Scotland Yard police in Britain created a major security alert and authorities halted air traffic. Rauf was arrested on a tip-off by British intelligence in Pakistan and was originally charged with carrying forged documents and possessing chemicals that could be used to make explosives. The charges were later dismissed by a Pakistani court, but he remained in detention under Maintenance of Public Order while the authorities in Islamabad were considering request for his extradition by British government, which wanted to question him over the unsolved murder of his uncle in Birmingham in 2002.

Rauf managed to escape from his police guards in December 2007 on the way back to prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, and was on run since then. His family had no confirmed information about his death in North Waziristan aerial attack. “They told me on phone that they had learned it from media reports but no official had contacted them to confirm it,” Rauf’s lawyer Hashmat Habit said.