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AMRITSAR - A British citizen accused of being the ringleader of a potentially devastating 2006 plot to destroy transatlantic airliners using liquid explosives is said to have been killed by a United States missile strike in Pakistan.
Unconfirmed reports said Rashid Rauf was among five people killed by the attack, apparently by an unmanned drone, in the lawless North Waziristan area located along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
The purported plot of which he was said to have been at the centre had the scope to kill as many people as the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, 2001.
Rauf had been named as a "mastermind" in an alleged plot to blow up a series of passenger jets flying to the United States and Canada from Heathrow airport in August 2006.
The alleged plot involved using smuggled liquid gels to be detonated mid-flight.
British diplomats in Pakistan said they were awaiting news about yesterday's incident, and Rauf's Pakistani lawyer also said he was unable to confirm or deny the reports of his death.
"If the body is not handed over I cannot do that," said Hashmat Ali Habib. Rauf's family declined to comment.
Rauf, 27, from the West Midlands, was arrested in Pakistan in August 2006 having fled there following the murder of his uncle in 2002.
He was arrested before the discovery of the airline plot. Once arrested, Britain sought the extradition of the British Pakistani over both the terror plot and the killing of his uncle. Yet Rauf's lawyer protested his client's innocence, and in December 2006 a judge in Pakistan threw out a series of terrorism charges.
Detained in custody on other charges of possessing explosives, Rauf was due to be extradited to Britain but escaped from custody in suspicious circumstances in December last year. At the time, Habib said he believed Rauf had been "disappeared" by the Pakistani intelligence authorities. Yesterday, he remained equally suspicious about Rauf's reported death.
Two Pakistan intelligence officials, citing reports from field agents, said four foreign militants and a Pakistani colleague had been killed in the pre-dawn strike on the village of Ali Khel. They said the missile strike had targeted the house of a Taleban commander, Khaliq Noor, said to shelter foreign fighters. There was, however, no independent confirmation of any of these details, and the Pakistani authorities made no official pronouncement.
"According to our information two missiles were fired by the drone on a house," said one intelligence officer in the region.
A spokesman for the Taleban denied that any "foreigners" had been killed in the strikes.
After leaving Britain for Pakistan in 2002, Rauf married a relative of one of Pakistan's most notorious militant leaders, Maulana Masood Azhar, the head of Jaish-e-Mohammad. The group is mostly accused of sending militants to fight in Kashmir, but some reports say it is linked to al Qaeda.
There are reports that its members were involved in the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.
LIQUID BOMB PLOT
Early 1980s: Abdul Rauf, a baker, arrives in Britain from rural Pakistan. Rashid Rauf is one of five children.
2002: Leaves Britain for Pakistan. Is wanted by police for questioning in relation to the murder of his uncle.
August 2006: Is arrested in Pakistan after a tip-off from United States intelligence over an alleged plot to explode liquid bombs aboard aeroplanes. The plot causes chaos and delayed flights for days. Passengers remain restricted in what they can carry.
August 2006: Twenty-three suspects are arrested in and around London, 16 charged with terrorism offences. In December a Rawalpindi court finds no evidence Rauf had been involved in terrorist activities and downgrades charges to forgery and possession of explosives.
December 2007: Rauf escapes from police custody after being allowed to enter a mosque to pray.
April 2008: "Liquid bomb plot" trial begins in Woolwich.
September 2008: After more than 50 hours of deliberations, the Crown Court trial jury finds three men guilty of conspiracy to murder.
Nov 23, 2008: Rashid Rauf is reportedly killed in a US missile strike in Pakistan.
- INDEPENDENT
