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More drone strikes against British jihadis: Official

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IANS London

British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon on Tuesday said the government is prepared to carry out further drone strikes against British jihadis in Syria.

Fallon said there were more than three people who represented such a threat to Britain that airstrikes against them could be authorised, The Guardian reported.

His comments came after Prime Minister David Cameron revealed that an unprecedented aerial strike in Syria had killed two Britons fighting alongside the Islamic State (IS) terror group.

Fallon said the strike had been undertaken in the knowledge that Reyaad Khan, a 21-year-old from Cardiff, had been planning an attack. He was killed alongside another Briton, Ruhul Amin, 26.

 

"There is a group of people who have lists of targets in our country, who are planning armed attacks on our streets, who are planning to disrupt major public events in this country and our job to keep us safe, with the security agencies, is to find out who they are, to track them down and, if there is no other way of preventing these attacks, then yes, we will authorise strikes like we did," the secretary said.

Speaking to the Commons on its first day back after the summer break on Monday, Cameron justified the strikes on the grounds that Khan, who had featured in a prominent IS recruiting video last year, represented a "clear and present danger".

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First Published: Sep 08 2015 | 4:58 PM IST

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