The notion of a Whitehall committee ordering the assassination of people on a secret list is outlandish. Yet this is what appears to have happened with the killing of Reyaad Khan, a jihadist fighter with Islamic State (IS) in Syria who was born in Wales. The British intelligence services knew that he was intent on organising terrorist attacks on the British mainland, and they knew where he was. Thanks to the presence of RAF drone aircraft in the vicinity armed with missiles, they had the means to eliminate the threat he represented. And so they did, also killing another British-born jihadist who was travelling with him.Although assassination by unmanned aircraft has been part of the American and Israeli armoury against militant Islamist opponents for a decade, Britain has held back in Syr