The fog of law

Not even Jeremy Corbyn lamented the death of Reyaad Khan, who was killed by an RAF drone in Syria after joining the Islamic State. He was a straight-A student from Cardiff who had the freedom to do anything with his life, but chose to turn his back on Britain and join a band of Islamofascists. He had been working hand-in-glove with Junaid Hussain, a talented computer hacker from Birmingham who fled to Syria; the two of them had been making detailed plans for attacks on Britain.

But the RAF’s involvement in the strike marks a new chapter in British warfare. The motive for the action was simple: Khan was planning to inflict great harm on British people, and in the absence of alternatives, the RAF struck when they had the chance. David Cameron didn’t need to say much more than that in the House of Commons this week. Yet he seemed bafflingly determined to climb into the same legal traps that ensnared Tony Blair. Khan was ‘directing’ an attack, he said, so the strike qualifies as ‘self-defence’ — language aimed at complying with Article 51 of the UN Charter. Immediately, he waded into the fog of law. There is no intelligence to suggest that Khan was planning a specific attack, and the Prime Minister should have taken care not to suggest otherwise.

The UN Charter was written 70 years ago, when the idea of an ‘imminent’ attack carried a very different meaning. In the era of digital jihad, attacks can always be ‘imminent’, because it takes no time at all to organise one. The language of the UN Charter no longer fits the reality of modern warfare. As the Prime Minister says, the killing of Reyaad Khan is a ‘departure’ for Britain — but the rules of engagement in this new world need to be explained.