The suspected British mastermind behind the 2006 al Qaeda plot to blow up 10 trans-Atlantic passenger jets with liquid explosives has been killed in a US missile strike, according to reports in Pakistan.

Had it succeeded, the plot could have killed on the scale of the September 11 attacks, and it resulted in tighter controls on hand luggage carried by passengers worldwide.

Rashid Rauf, originally from Birmingham, is believed to have been killed along with at least four other militants with links to al Qaeda by an unmanned US drone plane before dawn in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan.

Intelligence officers in northwest Pakistan, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Rauf had been killed, though there was no official confirmation.

They named another of the dead as Egyptian Abu Zubair al-Masri. Arab casualties in the region are usually taken as a sign of an al Qaeda presence.

The missile strike said to have killed him targeted a house near the North Waziristan town of Mir Ali, and came just two days after Pakistan lodged a protest with the US ambassador over missile attacks on its territory.

Villages around Mir Ali have been targeted before and have been a hive of Taliban and al Qaeda activity in the past.

“According to our information two missiles were fired by the drone on a house,” an intelligence officer in the region said.

“We have confirmed reports of five people killed and six injured,” another intelligence official said.

Missile-armed drones are primarily used by US forces in the region. The United States seldom confirms drone attacks. Pakistan does not have any combat drones.

Rauf, who is thought to be in his mid-20s, is wanted by West Midlands Police over the 2002 murder of his uncle.

Earlier this year, the West Midlands force confirmed that it was liaising with both the Home Office and the Foreign Office in respect of his extradition.

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