Everyone can rejoice at the murky fate of Rashid Rauf

The outsourced assassination by the CIA of the British-born terror suspect in Waziristan crucially meets all Government targets

FIRST POSTED NOVEMBER 26, 2008

Congratulations are due to MI6 for a fine example of outsourcing. Government departments are always being encouraged to cut costs by looking for external provision of services, and the assassination in Pakistan of the British al-Qaeda terrorist Rashid Rauf by a CIA-operated drone ticks all the required boxes.

The fantasy tough guys who slob around patriotically watching Quantum of Solace fondly imagine that Bond-style secret agents in Kilgore evening dress are easy to come by - not so. It's phenomenally expensive to train one of these chaps - almost as costly as it is to pay Daniel Craig to impersonate one. Besides, why get a one-man-band to tool up, fly out to Islamabad, then trek all the way into Waziristan, when you can involve at least two other security services into the bargain, as well as some informants on the ground?

There's considerable goodwill to be gained by letting the ISI finger slime like Rauf; after all the Pakistani intelligence services are about as conflicted as spooks can get, what with one faction cuddling up to the Taliban, while the other spent the last decade in bed with American neocons.

Giving them a plum hit like this enables our Pakistani friends to redeem themselves for having allowed Rauf to escape in the first place, and it meant they could offer up a little welcome gift to David 'Helmet Hair' Miliband when he came calling yesterday: a head.

It’s no joke living in a lawless frontier zone where there’s sod-all work available

As for the 'cousins', with President Obama waiting in the wings and General Petraeus's Afghanistan surge still on the table anything we can do to assist their own realpoliticking in the region has to be a good thing.

Then there's the poor benighted people of Waziristan themselves. Listen, it's no joke living in a lawless frontier zone where there's sod-all work available, and if there's one thing New Labour have prided itself on it's being an equal opportunities employer: while fingering suspects for judicial killing may only be entry-level, at least it gets them on the payroll.

Lest you imagine that all the benefits from MI6's canny procurement policy are being felt abroad, it's worth remembering that it was Rauf's arrest by the Pakistani authorities that scuppered the police

and MI5's Operation Crevice; leading to the premature arrest of those suspected of a terrorist plot to down transatlantic airplanes with chemicals smuggled onboard in shampoo bottles.

It may be small recompense to all those home-grown plods and spooks to have Rauf clipped after seeing all those others walk from the Old Bailey - but it's better than none, and given the infighting that's beset our own intelligence services it's bound to foster inter-agency camaraderie.

Irish paramilitary, Brazilian electrician, Anglo-Pakistani jihadist – all the same

And finally, let's not forget those pariahs of the political sphere, the media. Yes, us. We're so often maligned, but in this instance, by leaking the news through us before his own relatives back in Alum Rock, Birmingham, had heard about Rauf's death, MI6 have made us feel that we too can be part of the cause.

All in all, you have to concede that Rauf's elimination has been handled with great economy - not just of means, but ends as well, because this was an exceptionally cheap way of demonstrating to British Muslims that there's no discrimination here: Irish paramilitary, Brazilian electrician, Anglo-Pakistani jihadist you're all the same.

Rauf was wanted for his uncle's murder, he was linked to every terrorist network ever dreamed of by MI6, and he was clearly a thoroughly nasty piece of work. That he was never charged with anything, or formally brought before a court of law is a mere detail; the punishment should always fit the crime, and by contriving a punishment that is as murky and underhand as any terrorist plot, British justice has triumphantly asserted this paramount moral law.