Johnny Mercer says food bank use not an accurate measure of poverty after reports of some military personnel relying on them
The use of food banks is a personal decision for some people and not an accurate measure of levels of poverty across the UK, the veterans minister has said.
Johnny Mercer argued that food banks remained a lifeline for “some dire cases” but that it was “not correct” to say people used them only when they had no choice.
Continue reading...Lawyers for bereaved families allege British soldiers carried out policy of terminating all fighting-age men
Eighty Afghans may have been victim of summary killings by three separate British SAS units operating in the country between 2010 and 2013, lawyers representing the bereaved families have told a public inquiry.
One of the elite soldiers is believed to have “personally killed” 35 Afghans on a single six-month tour of duty as part of an alleged policy to terminate “all fighting-age males” in homes raided, “regardless of the threat they posed”.
Continue reading...Remains of eight Hurricanes dating back to 1940s conflict found south of Kyiv
Authorities in Ukraine have discovered the remains of eight British Hurricane fighter planes dating back to the second world war.
The aircraft, found near an unexploded bomb dating from the same conflict in a forest south of Kyiv, were sent to the Soviet Union by Britain after Nazi Germany invaded the country in 1941.
Continue reading...Gen Sir Patrick Sanders is said to have told defence secretary that the army cannot take more reductions
The head of the British army could resign, allies say, amid a fierce row over further proposed cuts to land forces in the run-up to a special defence review responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Interviews have already begun to replace Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, who has served only a year as chief of the general staff, and friends of the military leader say he may quit even sooner if the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, imposes further cuts.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Extensive deployments ‘raise serious concerns about transparency’, says research group Action on Armed Violence
SAS and other British special forces have been involved in covert operations in 19 countries in the past dozen years, including in Nigeria, the Philippines and Russia, as well as in Syria, Ukraine and most recently Sudan, a study reveals.
The elite military units operate in secret, without ministers publicly confirming their activities. But a research group, Action on Armed Violence, has compiled a list of their activities since 2011 based on media leaks.
Continue reading...UK opens tender for rockets akin to those denied by US, which could enable strikes deep into Crimea
Britain and a group of European allies are hoping to supply long-distance cruise missiles to Ukraine, similar in range to those the US has so far refused to supply Kyiv, which could allow its army to strike deep into Russian-occupied Crimea.
A tender document quietly released by the UK calls for western arms makers to offer “missiles or rockets with a range 100-300km” (62 to 186 miles) to the International Fund for Ukraine, run jointly with Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
Continue reading...Observers split on whether armed forces’ high-profile ceremonial role could help or hinder their image
The British military deployed 9,000 personnel in ceremonial and supporting duties on Saturday’s coronation, nearly 5% of all the UK armed forces, in the largest display of official pageantry for more than 70 years.
But the carefully choreographed effort, eight months in the planning, comes at a time when recruitment is falling and the image projected by the army on parade is, some observers say, far removed from the needs of the modern military.
Continue reading...Calls follow release of account by captain who said he strongly warned against ‘folly’ of attempted landing in June 1982
The release of a witness account detailing the “folly” of an operation in which 56 service personnel died on ships off the Falkland islands – the deadliest day for the British military since 1945 – has prompted fresh calls for the government to unseal all files relating to the tragedy.
Attacks by Argentinian Skyhawk planes against the landing ships Sir Tristram and Sir Galahad killed dozens of service personnel on 8 June 1982 and left more than 150 injured, including Simon Weston, the Welsh guard whose disfigured face became a defining image of the conflict.
Continue reading...Hundreds of people were told to make own way through ongoing fighting to airbase north of Khartoum
NHS doctors and British nationals faced a treacherous route to reach an airbase north of Khartoum before a deadline for evacuations, amid ongoing airstrikes and artillery fire in the Sudanese capital.
Hundreds of people were told to find their own way to an evacuation centre at the Wadi Seidna airbase, about 14 miles (20km) north of Khartoum and its twin city, Omdurman. They had to navigate ongoing fighting as the Sudanese Armed Forces continued to attack positions across the two cities, while members of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces hid among civilian buildings.
Continue reading...Military says emergency flights will operate as long as conditions are safe, as civilians arrive in Britain
Britain could continue running evacuation flights from Sudan once the current three-day ceasefire expires on Thursday night, the army officer in charge of the rescue said, as the first planeload of civilians rescued from the country’s civil war arrived at Stansted airport.
Brig Dan Reeve said the airlift from a base north of Khartoum would continue as long as conditions were safe, including possibly beyond the ceasefire period, if people could still travel there.
Continue reading...Stockholm International Peace Institute’s annual report finds UK was region’s biggest spender in 2022 at $68.5bn
Defence spending in western and central Europe has surpassed that of the last year of the cold war, an annual report has found, as military expenditure across the world hit an all-time high of $2.24tn (£1.8tn) last year.
The outbreak of war in Ukraine has triggered the steepest increase in military expenditure in Europe in three decades, according to the Stockholm International Peace Institute (Sipri).
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak says ‘complex and rapid’ operation carried out, amid fears for remaining UK nationals
The UK has evacuated its diplomatic staff and their dependants from Khartoum, the British prime minister and foreign secretary said on Sunday, but UK nationals still living in Sudan remained in the country.
Announcing the evacuation, Rishi Sunak said British armed forces had carried out “a complex and rapid” military operation. The evacuation involved members of UK special forces and the Parachute Regiment.
Continue reading...Rambahadur Limbu was awarded Britain’s highest military honour in 1966 for an act of gallantry
The last remaining Gurkha recipient of Britain’s Victoria Cross has died in Nepal at the age of 83.
Rambahadur Limbu was awarded Britain’s highest military decoration by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in 1966 for gallantry during an attack on Indonesian troops on the island of Borneo during which he rescued two fellow soldiers.
Continue reading...Standing With Giants, created for 40th anniversary, commemorates troops and islanders who died
Lifesize silhouetted figures representing the 255 British military personnel and three civilians who lost their lives in the Falklands war have been installed on the parade ground and ramparts at Fort Nelson in Portsmouth.
The art installation, Standing With Giants, was created to mark the 40th anniversary of the conflict and its arrival in the Hampshire port is regarded as particularly poignant as so many of the British ships left and returned there.
Continue reading...BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce among those funded, with aim of producing new aircraft by 2035
The Ministry of Defence has awarded £650m to manufacturers working on its Tempest fighter jet, in the latest sign that the UK is pushing forward with the aim of producing the aircraft by 2035.
The companies who will receive the money are led by manufacturer BAE Systems, jet engine maker Rolls-Royce, and the UK arms of Italy’s Leonardo and European missile-maker MBDA.
Continue reading...Death of Freddie Scappaticci, who always denied he was mole, puts question mark over inquiry into his alleged crimes
The man said to be the British army’s most important agent inside the Provisional IRA has died, putting a question mark over the inquiry into his alleged crimes and the role played by security forces.
Freddie Scappaticci, a west Belfast former bricklayer who was alleged to have been a top mole known as Stakeknife, died and was buried last week, it emerged on Tuesday. He was in his 70s.
Continue reading...Documents appear to list number of western special forces personnel in Ukraine in February and March
Leaked US military documents indicate that the UK has deployed as many as 50 special forces to Ukraine.
The documents suggest that more than half of the western special forces personnel present in Ukraine between February and March this year may have been British.
Continue reading...Contradictions over missions in Syria and Iraq deepens concern over Britain’s ‘perfect’ precision war
It sounded like accountability. Pressed about the UK’s implausibly spotless record in its bombing campaign against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the British government admitted in May 2018 that its military had killed one civilian in eastern Syria two months earlier.
But the strike the then defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, described to parliament was not logged in the records of civilian casualties kept by its allies in the international coalition flying bombers and drones over Syria and Iraq.
Continue reading...Report says UK armed service has ‘major questions to answer’ about conduct in war against Islamic State
Twenty-nine civilians are feared to have been killed in nine RAF airstrikes in Iraq and Syria between 2016 and 2018, 10 more than previous estimates, and far higher than the single non-combatant fatality accepted by the UK, according to analysis.
In the worst incident, 12 civilians were accepted as likely to have been killed in Raqqa, Syria in 2017 by a US strike, while research points to an RAF drone strike killing at least four member of the same family in Abu Kamal, Syria, in 2016, according to on-the-ground reports.
Continue reading...MPs and ministers support campaign to locate relatives of Peter Brown, who died alone in London aged 96
A search is under way to find the family of one of the RAF’s last black second world war veterans, who died recently.
Peter Brown, a retired flight sergeant, died alone aged 96 in Maida Vale, west London. Without any known family, Westminster council and the RAF are attempting to locate any relatives of Brown to pay tribute to him at Mortlake Crematorium on 29 March.
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