Pakistan

Terror plotter killed by US missile, officials claim

Article published on the 2008-11-22 Latest update 2008-11-22 11:37 TU

Rashid Rauf in court in 2007
(Photo: Reuters)

Pakistani officials say that Rashid Rauf, the alleged mastermind of an Al-Qaeda plot to blow up transatlantic flights in 2006, was killed in a US missile strike early Saturday. They say that another wanted Al-Qaeda operative, Egyptian national Abu Zubair al-Misri, was among the five people who died in the attack.

Western diplomats say that the missile, which hit a house in the guerrilla stronghold of Alikhel, was fired from a jet across the border from Afghanistan.

Pakistan has continually protested about US attacks on its territory.

British-Pakistani Rauf was arrested in Pakistan in 2006 over an alleged 2002 bomb plot to use explosives to blow up flights from London's Heathrow Airport  to the US. The British government requested his extradition in connection with the murder of his uncle in 2002.

Four years later a Pakistani anti-terrorism court dropped terrorism charges, an order that was suspended after an appeal by the Punjab provincial government.

In 2007, Rauf, who was being held on impersonation charges, escaped from custody.

On Friday in the south-western Baluchistan province a Shia-Muslim scholar, Allama Hassan Zakri, was killed, amid an apparent rise in sectarian tension.

Earlier in the day at least seven people died and 40 were wounded in the bombing of a Shia funeral processsion in the north-west.

Shia-Muslims make up about 20 per cent of the country's population.