Limit the drones

According to unnamed security and intelligence sources, a plot to launch "commando-style" attacks on Britain, France and Germany was intercepted and foiled by drone attacks on militants based in Pakistan (Report, 29 September). They provide no evidence to support this claim. This sounds like naked propaganda to justify the recent spike in illegal and immoral US drone strikes in Pakistan. Conservative estimates suggest that these attacks have killed one civilian for every two combatants, but no official figures are available. Thus, instead of "pre-empting possible terror plots", the drone strikes are just as likely fuelling further extremism and anti-western sentiment. The UN's special rapporteur for extrajudicial executions has warned that the practice amounts to "a licence to kill without accountability". An agreement to regulate and limit the use of armed drones is long overdue.