Cardiff-born Reyaad Khan was killed in a precision airstrike by an RAF remotely operated aircraft near Raqqa in Syria
The legal case for using drone strikes outside of armed conflict needs “urgent clarification” from ministers, a cross-party parliamentary committee has said.
The government insisted it did not have a “targeted killing” policy, but was clearly willing to use lethal force overseas for counter-terrorism, the Joint Committee on Human Rights said.
Two UK citizens were killed in Syria last year by an RAF drone.
The government says it takes “lawful action” over direct threats to the UK.
Reyaad Khan, a British member of the so-called Islamic State (IS) group, was killed by an RAF drone in Syria last August. Ruhul Amin, 26, from Aberdeen, also died in the strike.
‘Self-defence’
When he informed Parliament of the death, Prime Minister David Cameron said Mr Khan, 21, from Cardiff, had been plotting “barbaric” attacks on UK soil.
The British military had not been authorised by Parliament to engage in military action inside Syria at that stage – but the strike was justified as an “act of self-defence”, Mr Cameron said.
But that position is not justified under international law, and later statements justified the killing in the context of the armed conflict in Iraq.
The committee said it accepted that the drone strike had been part of the armed conflict against IS in Iraq and Syria, and therefore covered by the the Law of War.
But there were contradictions and inconsistencies in the government’s explanation of its policy on drone strikes, the committee added.
It said the government’s policy on using lethal force abroad outside of armed conflict, and the legal basis for that, must be clarified.
The MPs and peers said international law permitting self-defence did not extend to using force “pre-emptively against a threat which is more remote, such as plans which have been merely discussed but which lack the necessary intent or capability to make them imminent”.
‘Take international lead’
Committee chairman and Labour MP Harriet Harman said the legal justification for the drone strike on Khan was “confused and confusing”.
She called for the UK government to lead the way internationally by defining a clear legal basis for action, and to make sure those who made decisions were held accountable.
“As the world faces the grey area between terrorism and war, there needs to be a new international consensus on when it is acceptable for a state to take a life outside of armed conflict,” she said.
“Our government has said they’re going to be targeting people in other parts of the world, but there’s no independent scrutiny afterwards,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
New technology and the rise of a force like IS had changed the traditional models of war, she added.
Clarification on drones was needed because the UK should abide by the rule of law, said Ms Harman, adding that those who killed people in strikes could later be open to a murder charge.
US actions
The committee also wants the government to set out its legal basis for assisting other nations, such as the US, in strikes against IS.
The US says it is in a global armed conflict with IS, so the Law of War applies and lethal force can be used anywhere in the world.
On Monday, a US strike in Iraq killed Abu Wahib, a senior Islamic State leader in Anbar province, and three other IS jihadists.
A UK government spokesman said: “Where we identify a direct and imminent threat to the UK we will take lawful action to address it and report to Parliament after we have done so.
“Such actions are only to be carried out as a last resort when all other options have been exhausted, and we would always do so in accordance with international humanitarian law.”
