Thursday, September 30, 2010

Briton suspected of plotting Mumbai-style attacks killed by predator drone; Pakistan


A Pakistani intelligence official was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying that the man, who is believed to have been acting in concert with another Briton, was killed in a missile strike by a US unmanned aerial drone.

The official named the dead man as Abdul Jabbar who, he said, had come originally from Pakistan's Jhelum district.

He said that the suspects, who also included eight German nationals, had been hiding in the tribal areas of the North Waziristan region.

The Britons are believed to have been tracked by the authorities for some time before the incident, which occured on Sept 8. News of the plot only emerged this week, after the killing of its mastermind Sheikh Fateh al-Masri, a senior al-Qaeda commander, by another US missile on Saturday.

The Foreign Office said it would not comment becuase on what it described as "security matters".

<1--more-->The latest report follows the disclosure earlier this week that intelligence agencies in Europe, the US and Pakistan had intercepted a credible Islamist plot to attack cities in Britain, France and Germany.

Militants were said to be planning commando-style raids similar to the attack on Mumbai in India two years ago.

The discovery of the plot lead to an upsurge in attacks by CIA Predator drones on the tribal areas of northern Pakistan in an attempt to disrupt their preparations.

Robert Wainwright, director of the European police organisation Europol, said the disclosures showed that the terrorist threat remained high.

"There has been a significant decline in the number of terrorist attacks in Europe - certainly committed by Islamist groups - that hides the reality that these groups are still active," he said.

"The threat is still out there - absolutely - as these reports show."

Telegraph

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