Last Friday, a number of people with links to al-Qaeda were killed by a missile fired from a pilotless US drone on the Pakistan- Afghanistan border. It is thought that among the five dead was Rashid Rauf, a British citizen, who was suspected of being involved in a number of alleged terrorist plots and was being closely monitored by our intelligence services.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has not yet confirmed whether Rauf was the target of the attack. But whether he was or not, this strike raises significant questions about this Government's counter-terrorism policy and I shall be calling for clarification from the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, about British counter-terrorism operations in these circumstances.
I base my own experience on many tours in Northern