Does the government hold a ‘kill list’ of terrorists fighting for the so-called Islamic State who can be taken out at a moment’s notice? Michael Fallon certainly seemed to suggest so this morning on Radio 4, saying the government ‘would not hesitate’ to launch further attacks on those who posed a threat to this country.
The Prime Minister’s official spokeswoman neither confirmed nor denied the existence of a list when asked about it. She said: ‘It means the government remains absolutely committed to doing what is necessary to protect British people here on the streets of Britain.’ Pressed on the existence of a list of names, she said: ‘It means that our approach is to protect us from that threat.’ She was then asked whether there was an appendix of names to the legal advice which was sought on launching a drone strike in self-defence. Her reply was:
‘Look, I’ve set out what the approach decided by the senior members of the [National Security Council] has been which is that we should keep doing what is necessary to protect people here in Britain and therefore judge case by case: what is the scale and nature of the threat faced, what are the options for disrupting that threat and then decide it and take action accordingly.’
She said there was a long-standing convention of not publishing the legal advice from the Attorney General, and would only say the decision was on this was made ‘some months ago’.
So legal advice was given several months ago and was not re-sought before the drone strike was launched on Reyaad Khan and Junaid Hussain, which suggests – though the spokeswoman did not confirm or deny this – that their names had already been considered by the National Security Council when it discussed the threat.
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