British-Pakistani terror suspect Rashid Rauf is still alive, his lawyer told the BBC on Monday, insisting reports that he had died in a US missile attack in Pakistan were "fake." The alleged Al-Qaeda mastermind of a 2006 transatlantic jet bombing conspiracy was reportedly killed over the weekend in a US raid in a northwestern border district that is regarded as a stronghold of Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants. "We don't believe that this story is true ... It is a fake story," lawyer Hashmat Ali Habib told BBC radio, adding: "We still believe that my client, Rashid, is alive."
| We'll need to see him holding up tomorrow's New York Times, and his GPS coordinates ... |
Rauf died Saturday when a missile hit a tribesman's house in the village of Ali Khel, a Pakistani security official told AFP. The strike site is in a lawless tribal territory and according to government officials, militants there usually surround the place after such attacks, preventing access of government representatives or the army, before burying the bodies themselves.
The Foreign Office said Saturday it was probing reports that Rauf had been killed. "We are currently investigating this at the moment, but we do not have any information," a spokesman said.