At 10pm on Friday night the tribesmen in the villages of North Waziristan heard a sound they have learnt to fear. The hum of American reconnaissance planes high above the lawless tribal lands that span the Pakistan-Afghan border usually presages an imminent strike by Predator drones, targeting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters who shelter in their midst.

There have been more than 20 such attacks since August, but this time it appeared to be a false alarm. The locals were relieved when the sound faded at midnight.

Three hours later, however, they were woken by explosions in Khaisoor, as three Hellfire missiles from a Predator destroyed a mud-built bungalow in the village.

Inside, among the five people killed and six injured, were Rashid Rauf, the British militant alleged to have masterminded a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in 2006, and two senior Al-Qaeda comrades, Abu Nasr Al-Misri and Abu Zubair Al-Masri, according to Pakistani intelligence sources.

The bungalow belonged to Khaliq Noor, who locals say is not a Taliban figure but who rented it out to the militants. They would have regarded the house as the safest of havens. The village is a Taliban stronghold; it was here that the Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud and Pakistan government officials signed a 2005 “peace deal” that the Americans regarded as a surrender to terrorism.

But their location had been betrayed, either by their own use of a mobile telephone, or by the spies and special forces tracking them. Senior Pakistani government sources say the attack was lined up by the country’s intelligence services who tipped off their American counterparts about Rauf’s whereabouts. They added that he, rather than the two Arabs, was the main target of the attack.

After the bombing, Taliban fighters under the local commander Aleem Kha will stand trial next year charged with the alleged plot.

Rauf had been tracked by British, American and Pakistani intelligence ever since he escaped from the custody of the Pakistani authorities in mysterious circumstances earlier this year. Now, he had been found and eliminated.

RAUF was born in Pakistan but was brought up in the Midlands after his family emigrated to the UK in the 1980s. He first came to the attention of police in 2002 when his uncle, Mohammed Saeed, was murdered in Birmingham.

Then a 21-year-old, Rauf had been working as a delivery driver at a bakery in the Bordesley Green area of Birmingham, started by his father Abdul Rauf. Another employee was Tayib Rauf, his younger brother, subsequently arrested over the Heathrow liquid bomb plot but later released without charge. There is nothing to suggest the family was aware of Rauf’s activities.

A few weeks after Saeed was stabbed to death on his way home from work in what was described as a frenzied attack, Rauf fled to Pakistan, where he has been ever since.

As the West Midlands police issued an international warrant for his arrest, he went to stay with relatives in Bahawalpur, a remote backwater where the extended family of his wife was based.

There Rauf came under the influence of Masri, one of the men also believed to have been killed yesterday and a top Al-Qaeda bombmaker and operations expert. Together, it is believed they planned the alleged airliner attacks.

Rauf’s role remains murky. His name cropped up during Operation Overt, the covert surveillance operation run by Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorist command in the spring of 2006. His movements then became the subject of close scrutiny, but the Pakistanis were asked not to arrest him so as not to alert the alleged British cell.

There were other links that rang alarm bells. Intelligence reports suggested Rauf was linked to Ibrahim Muktar, the leader of the failed July 21 suicide bomb plot that targeted London in 2005. Pakistani intelligence has suggested he was the link between senior Al-Qaeda figures there and in Afghanistan and cells in Britain.

In early August 2006, the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI) became concerned that Rauf might be planning to flee to a remote tribal area. The Pakistanis swooped, setting off a chain of events that led to more than 20 arrests in the UK for the alleged airliner plot.

Peter Clarke, who as head of Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command was in overall charge of Operation Overt, yesterday said he could not discuss Rauf because of a forthcoming trial. But earlier this year he expressed his bitter disappointment at what he saw as Rauf’s premature arrest.

“This was not good news,” he said. “We were at a critical point in building our case. If word got out that he had been arrested evidence might be destroyed and scattered to the four winds. More worrying still was the prospect of a desperate attack.”

In December 2006 a judge in Pakistan dismissed terrorist charges against Rauf. He was, however, remanded in jail on lesser charges while preparations were made for his deportation to the UK.

A year later he managed to escape while on his way back to Adiala prison from a court hearing. In a bizarre lapse of security, which raised immediate suspicions of collusion, his police escort of just two officers allowed him to stop off for lunch at McDonald’s. He disappeared after being told he could go into a mosque to worship unaccompanied. Until yesterday, that was his last contact with the authorities.

RAUF’S apparent killing is just one part of a wider assault by America on the tribal areas, with at least 20 such attacks having taken place since the summer. Like the previous strikes, this one was planned by a special unit from the CIA’s counter-terrorism centre, with the logistics carried out by military commanders based in Bahrain and Kuwait.

The attacks were stepped up earlier this year following the visit of CIA director Michael Hayden and other high-ranking US security officials to Pakistan. Under a deal agreed with the country’s then president, Pervez Musharraf, the US would have virtually unrestricted authority to attack border areas in the country. Pakistan would then officially deny any knowledge of the attacks and publicly condemn them for domestic political purposes.

The new strategy is based on an assessment that the next major Al-Qaeda attack on the West will originate from the country’s tribal areas. It was this assessment that is thought to be behind a warning issued three months ago by Lord West, the security minister, that: “There is another great plot building up again and we are monitoring this.”

The new intensity of American attacks followed the approval this summer by President George W Bush of more relaxed rules of engagement for American forces in the area. Previously the Pentagon required “90%” confidence that a “high-value target” was at a location before approving a Predator strike. Now that threshold was dropped to 50%-60%.

However, even British commanders are wary of their effectiveness, given the resentment they produce among locals. One has described them as “utter madness”.

They seem likely to continue. Barack Obama, the US president-elect, has vowed to step up the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader, regardless of borders.

Bruce Riedel, a counter- terrorism expert and adviser to Obama, spoke approvingly of this weekend’s mission. “Rauf epitomises the Pakistan-UK connection that Al-Qaeda is trying to exploit to attack Britain and the United States,” he said. “He also has ties to Kashmiri terror groups closely aligned with Al-Qaeda.”

Last night British officials were saying they were still seeking formal confirmation of the identities of those killed in the missile strike, but questions will be raised about what, if anything, London knew about an attack by coalition forces that resulted in the death of a British citizen.

Officially, Britain is not told of impending American missile attacks on terrorist figures and both MI5 and MI6 state that they do not get involved in assassinations.

The arrangements under which the CIA consults with Britain about such strikes remain a closely guarded secret, but it seems hard to believe that, given the intensity of interest in Rauf, the agencies here would not have known that the Americans had tracked him down.

Yesterday British intelligence officials refused to say whether they were aware of Rauf’s location, although if Pakistani intelligence was aware it is certain that both MI6 and MI5 had been told.

The attack has alarmed some MPs who say it raises important questions about Britain’s co-operation with America in the war on terror. MPs have been probing the role of MI5 and other agencies in Pakistan, following allegations that MI5 officers may have supplied questions to Pakistani intelligence officers who subsequently tortured detainees.

Andrew Dismore, the Labour chairman of the parliamentary committee on human rights, said he would be referring the matter to the committee for possible investigation.

“This is a very serious matter, particularly if the attack was based on intelligence provided by the British security agencies. 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.

“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 Tory MP for Newark and former shadow security minister, said Rauf’s killing raised serious issues. “This raises the question of how much co-operation 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.”

At Rauf’s family home in Birmingham yesterday the only response came from a bearded man in his twenties. The man, who would not identify himself, said: “I’m very angry right now, so you should leave for your own safety.”

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