PM backs Williamson on jihadi drone strikes

Theresa May yesterday said she was prepared to order drone strikes on British passport holders after a report warned of the threat from extremists driven out of Syria and iraq.

her comments support the Defence Secretary’s assertion earlier this month that Britons fighting for islamic State are legitimate targets.

Gavin Williamson told the Mail that the remaining 270 fighters in Syria and iraq should not be allowed back into the UK, adding: ‘A dead terrorist can’t cause any harm to Britain’. The prime Minister has now vowed to do what is ‘necessary’ to keep UK citizens safe and said too many innocent people had suffered from terrorist attacks plotted overseas.

She said killing a UK citizen was ‘one of the most difficult decisions a Government can take’, but declared she would ‘always be prepared to take action’.

her stark comments came as a parliamentary report warned of the threat from jihadis returning to the UK as islamic State is pushed out of iraq and Syria. The report disclosed details from Mi5 of an islamic State ‘external operations department’ in which jihadists are plotting terrorism in the West ‘all day every day’.

Mrs May referred to drone strikes in a written ministerial statement in response to the intelligence and security committee’s annual report. The PM said there were a number of counter-terrorism measures to prevent and disrupt plans to attack the UK.

She said: ‘But sadly this year has shown that the threat from terrorism cannot always be contained. Too many innocent families’ lives have been ruined across the UK from international terrorist attacks.

‘The Government will continue to do what is necessary to keep citizens safe.’ Mrs May referenced a drone strike on British citizen Reyaad Khan in August 2015. She said ‘there was no government that the UK could work with, and no military on the ground to detain Daesh operatives’, meaning there is no alternative to an airstrike.

The report said there were around 300 UK individuals of national security concern still in iraq and Syria. it warned: ‘When they decide to leave, the UK remains their most natural point of return’. it added Mi5 had said: ‘There is part of Daesh which is functionally best described as an external operations department which has a whole bunch of people which pretty much all day every day are plotting terrorism in the West.’

committee chairman Dominic Grieve said: ‘The scale of the terrorist threat facing the UK is unprecedented.’