MPs to hold inquiry into use of drones James Arbuthnot, the Conservative chairman of the Defence Committee, told The Times: "An unmanned aerial vehicle is the same as any other platform that fires weapons. The issues that are concerning people are the distance between the person who is controlling that platform and the death that results from it. Britain has deployed drones in Afghanistan since 2006 and last month it was announced that a new squadron of unmanned RAF drones controlled for the first time from terminals in Britain would begin operations over the country within weeks. But the use of drones is controversial because of fears that civilians can be killed and injured by them. Human rights campaigners claim that civilian deaths resulting from drone strikes constitute a war crime. The US has been particularly criticised for its programme of targeted drone killings against militants in Pakistan's tribal heartlands. Philip Alstron, the former UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killing, suggested Britain could make the US's use of drones less shrouded in secrecy however. He said: "If the British Government is forced to be more transparent and more forthcoming, that puts great pressure on its allies and public opinion certainly in the United States will see that what they currently assume to be the reasonable norm is not."