Taliban leader killed by CIA's deadly drones The CIA kill missions flown at an altitude of up to 25,000 ft are increasingly rare over the Taliban's stronghold but the attack on Friday targeting the group's top leader is unlikely to be the last of its kind. In a coincidence of timing,James Dobbins, the top US diplomat on Afghanistan and Pakistan, was meeting with journalists in the basement of the country's London embassy as the attack moved into its final stages. Questions about the Pakistan Taliban and the US drone programme in the frontier regions along the Afghan border met with a frank but curt response from the veteran diplomatic. "I'm not going to comment on drones," he bluntly responded to one query. The Predator drone is the workhorse of the US unmanned survelliance and attack fleet Drone strikes on Taliban and al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan have been controversial since the first recorded attack in 2004. Cameron Munter, the US ambassador to Pakistan, grew so incensed at Washington's persisent use of unmanned aircraft despite a popular backlash that he abruptly left his post in 2012. Figures leaked from Pakistan's Ministry of Defence last week estimated that 67 civilians were among the 2,227 people killed in 317 drone attacks since 2008. In a separate report, Ben Emmerson, a British QC and member of Cherie Blair's Matrix Chambers, told the UN that in fact 400 civilians have been killed since 2004, a figure dramatically higher than Islamabad's estimates. President Barack Obama has sharply curtailed the use of drones in Pakistan and elsewhere. There have been 24 drone strikes on Waziristan so far in 2013, a dramatic decline in the pace of attacks since the high point of the campaign in 2010, when 117 strikes were record. Even critics of the use of drones acknowledged that the accuracy of the weapon makes it a legitimate weapon of war under international humanitarian law. What is open to question is whether or not systematic use of drones by a global superpower infringes international law. New rules signed by the US president lay out five rules for carrying out an attack. There must be near certainty that the terrorist targetted is present. There must also be same near certainty that there will be no "non-combatants" killed. Analysts must also conclude that the target cannot be captured and the local authorities cannot act against the terrorist independently. A final rule states that there should be no alternative to drones to eliminate the threat posed by the militant. The Predator drone is the workhorse of the US unmanned survelliance and attack fleet that also includes the more advanced MQ-9 Reaper. The lethal force those drones can project is backed up by a battery of survelliance drones, including the recently developed Golden Hawk with a 12,000 mile range. In a widely reported intervention at Oxford University this year Harold Koh, a former legal adviser at the State Department, warned that drones paved the way for the "forever war" in which the US was locked in perpetuate strikes against al-Qaeda. "If we are too loose in who we consider to be 'part of" or 'associated with" al-Qaeda going forward, then we will always have new enemies, and the forever war will continue forever," he said. President Obama has signalled that he wants drone warfare to be the third conflict, after the casualty heavy Iraq and Afghanistan battles, wound down under is presidency. Last week's attack demonstrated the advantage of waging precision attacks from drones as well as underlining the persistent strength of al-Qaeda linked groups. The challenge of weaning America off its dependence on drones grows more difficult as the programme claims more scalps from al-Qaeda's top ranks.