A senior al-Qaeda figure is reported to have been killed in a suspected US missile strike in northwest Pakistan.
Rashid Rauf, a British militant and the suspected ringleader of a 2006 plot to blow up transatlantic airliners using liquid explosives, was among five people killed in the attack.
The strike was believed to have been launched by a US pilotless drone in the North Waziristan region.
The bomb plot, which was uncovered with the help of Pakistani intelligence, resulted in tighter controls on cabin luggage hand-carried on board by air passengers worldwide.
Intelligence officers in northwest Pakistan said Rauf, who escaped from custody after appearing in an Islamabad court last December, had been killed, though there was no official confirmation of his death.
Several Pakistani news channels also reported the death of the 27-year-old Rauf and an Egyptian national.
A British Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘We are investigating the reports.’
