RAF first as Taliban leader is killed by plane ... piloted remotely in Las Vegas

Two 'pilots', controlling the robot via satellite from an airbase outside Las Vegas, spotted a target thousands of miles away in southern Afghanistan.

They ordered the £10million Reaper drone to carry out an airstrike.

Sources at the Ministry of Defence said the strike, which took place in the last ten days, killed a 'high value' Taliban target, but officials would not confirm the insurgent's identity.

The attack marks a symbolic watershed in Britain's use of military airpower.

Many in the Armed Forces believe that the drones - also known as unmanned aerial vehicles - represent the future of aerial combat.

The technology is now so advanced that the current generation of bomber pilots is likely to be the last.

Guided missiles have been in use for years against ground targets.

However, this is the first time that British forces have used a flying drone to locate a target, monitor it while the airstrike is planned and authorised and then launch the weapons to destroy it.

U.S. Air Force Senior Airman William Swain operates a sensor control station during a training mission

The drones came of age in the 1980s and 1990s as computers became smaller and more powerful.

The RAF recently signed an urgent deal to buy three U.S-built Reapers and send them to the frontline in Afghanistan, where spy-drones have proved vital in giving allied forces an edge over the Taliban.

Flying from Kandahar Airbase in the south of the country, Britain's Reapers can cover the entire area where UK forces are locked in battle with the Taliban.

The drones are about the size of a small executive jet, and they take off from conventional runways.

They can fly above a battlefield for up to 14 hours, beaming high-definition images to commanders on the ground.

They are used to act within seconds against targets such as key terrorist leaders - instead of waiting up to an hour for a conventional strike jet to arrive.

They are guided via satellite link by RAF 'pilots' sitting 7,000 miles away in a control centre at Creech Air Force Base near Las Vegas.

A pilot's display in a ground control station

One senior insider said: 'It is a slightly strange existence for them.

'They are intimately involved in the war in Afghanistan, but at the end of their shift they drive out of their base in Nevada, go home and live a normal life.'

The RAF is due to buy its own control system for the Reapers, and in future the drones will be 'flown' by aircrew based at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire.

Defence chiefs also hope to buy another nine drones in the coming months, with the overall project costing around £500million.