November 24, 2008	Monday	Ziqa'ad 25, 1429

LONDON, Nov 23: Two British lawmakers on Sunday urged the government to reveal whether it knew in advance about a

US missile attack in Pakistan which killed the alleged mastermind of an aeroplane bombing plot.

British-Pakistani Rashid Rauf died when a missile hit a house in the village of Alikhel of North Waziristan, a Pakistani security official told AFP.

Rauf was the alleged Al Qaeda mastermind of a 2006 transatlantic jet bombing conspiracy.

Lawmaker Andrew Dismore, chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, will ask the scrutiny body to probe whether British intelligence services had been consulted about the missile strike,

The Sunday Times newspaper reported.

“This is a very serious matter, particularly if the attack was based on intelligence provided by the British security agencies,” said the member of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s governing Labour Party.

“We can investigate whether British security services had involvement in providing intelligence concerning British nationals in Pakistan. I anticipate this is a matter the committee might like to follow up,” he told the broadsheet.

“If there is any suggestion of complicity of the UK security services in this particular incident then that is certainly something we would want to take into account in our work on this subject.”

Patrick Mercer, the main opposition Conservative Party’s former security spokesman, told the weekly: “This raises the question of how much cooperation the British intelligence agencies provided in what is ultimately the execution of a British subject.

“The government must explain its involvement and its future policy in this area.”

Rauf was arrested in 2006 in Pakistan over the bomb plot and 24 people were detained in Britain in a major swoop.

A day later a massive security operation at London Heathrow Airport resulted in mass cancellations for several days, amid fears of a terrorist attack using liquid explosives on London flights bound for North America.

The Foreign Office said on Saturday it was probing reports that Rauf had been killed. “We are currently investigating this at the moment, but we do not have any information,” a spokesman said.—AFP