Category Archives: Ministry of Defence

Hezbollah said to have launched drone that struck UK RAF airbase in Cyprus

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Two more drones intercepted on Monday, authorities say, in what appears to be sustained targeting of base

A one-way attack drone – said to have been launched by Lebanon’s Hezbollah – struck the UK’s RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus at about midnight on Sunday, prompting a partial evacuation of the military facility.

Two more drones were successfully intercepted on Monday morning, the Cypriot authorities said, as part of what appears to be a sustained targeting of the base on the third day of the war in the Middle East.

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UK troops treated for hearing problems in final tests of Ajax armoured vehicle

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The £5.5bn model was classified as fit for army deployment in September but soldiers continue to raise health fears

Soldiers had to be given medical treatment for hearing problems this summer during final testing of the British army’s new Ajax armoured vehicle, whose introduction has been delayed for several years amid concerns about deafness.

The model, which costs £5.5bn for 589 vehicles, was nevertheless classified as fit for deployment in September. An investigation concluded there were “no systemic issues” – but there remain health concerns among the troops involved.

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Britain sends small number of troops to monitor Gaza ceasefire

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Defence secretary says UK will play ‘anchor role’ in US-led civil military coordination centre

British troops have been sent to Israel to help monitor the ceasefire in Gaza after a request from the US.

The defence secretary, John Healey, announced the deployment of a small number of planning officers, including a senior commander, at an event on Monday night. He said the UK would play an “anchor role”. Ten days ago the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the UK had “no plans” to send soldiers to Gaza.

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More than 7,300 Afghans to be resettled in UK after MoD data leak, says National Audit Office

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Watchdog’s report says government is unable to calculate exact cost of response to data breach, raising doubt over £850m estimate

More than 7,300 Afghans are expected to be resettled in the UK as a result of a major government data breach, according to a National Audit Office report that raises doubts over officials’ claims of a £850m cost.

The accidental leak by an MoD official in 2022 of 18,700 Afghans’ details who had worked with or for the British government led to the opening of a new route by which those endangered could seek relocation to the UK from their home country.

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Britain told US that invading Iraq could cost Blair his premiership, papers reveal

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Adviser to former PM said Bush’s pursuit of regime change in Baghdad could also cause ‘regime change in London’

The stark terms in which the US was warned that invading Iraq without a second UN security council resolution could cost Tony Blair his premiership have been revealed in newly released documents.

Blair’s foreign policy adviser, David Manning, warned Condoleezza Rice, the then US national security adviser: “The US must not promote regime change in Baghdad at the price of regime change in London.”

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Grant Shapps defends use of superinjunction to suppress Afghan data leak

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Shapps, defence secretary when the superinjunction was imposed, said its use was ‘entirely justified’ to save lives

The former defence secretary Grant Shapps has defended the use of an unprecedented superinjunction to suppress a data breach that led to the UK government relocating 15,000 Afghans.

The Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) was created in haste after it emerged that personal information about 18,700 Afghans who had applied to come to the UK had been leaked in error by a British defence official in early 2022.

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‘There’s a bit of a queue forming’: how UK firms are enticing buyers for the next generation of fighter jets

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Inside the hangars where robots are poised to keep the UK a top-tier military nation and continue more than a century of building military aircraft

In a factory on the banks of the River Ribble in Lancashire, robot arms stand on a floor striped with glowing lights. They will hold the tail fin for a test model for the UK’s next generation fighter jet, which is intended to fly for the first time in 2027. The jet, known as Tempest, will act as a symbol of Britain’s hopes to remain a top-tier military nation and keep alive more than a century of building military aircraft.

Yet things are markedly different in another hangar at the Warton site, run by British arms manufacturer BAE Systems. There, production of the Typhoon jet, a mainstay of the Royal Air Force (RAF) for two decades, has – for now at least – ground to a halt.

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Wallace rejects claim Afghans with ‘tenuous’ links to UK admitted as ex-Tory minister says resettlement scheme was ‘hapless’ – live

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Johnny Mercer, former veterans minister, sharply critical of how Afghan resettlement programme handled

In an interview with LBC Ben Wallace, the former Tory defence secretary, hit back at his former ministerial colleague Johnny Mercer rather more forcefully than he did on the Today programme (see 8.09am) over Mercer’s comments about the Afghan resettlement programme.

Tom Swarbrick, the presenter, quoted what Mercer said about how this “whole farcical process has been the most hapless display of ineptitude by successive ministers and officials that I saw in my time in government”.

No, I don’t agree with it. I think my record would show the opposite. It was me and Priti Patel, before the collapse of Kabul, who decided we were going to accelerate bringing people back who were under threat …

People hadn’t come out before. And we made sure that we did this. I think what Johnny, you know, fails to grasp, is quite the massive scale of collapse that happened very quickly in Afghanistan, leaving people at risk, and we had to do our very best.

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No automatic right to resettlement for Afghans in data leak, says Healey

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Defence secretary says it was ‘never the plan to bring everyone’ on dataset to UK, while Ben Wallace denies Tories sought superinjunction

The defence secretary, John Healey, has said there is no automatic right to resettlement for Afghans named in a leaked Ministry of Defence database, as the former Conservative ministers Ben Wallace and Johnny Mercer clashed over whether “thousands of people with little or tenuous links” had been admitted to Britain.

The controversy revolves around a dataset containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied for the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (Arap) that was released “in error” in February 2022 by a British defence official.

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Thousands of Afghans relocated to UK under secret scheme after data leak

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Conservative government used superinjuction to hide error that put Afghans at risk and led to £2bn mitigation scheme

Conservative ministers used an unprecedented superinjunction to suppress a data breach that required the UK to offer relocation to 15,000 Afghans in a secret scheme with a potential cost of more than £2bn.

The Afghan Response Route (ARR) was created in haste after it emerged that personal information about 18,700 Afghans who had applied to come to the UK had been leaked in error by a British defence official in early 2022.

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‘The worst day of all time’: Afghans speak of safety fears after UK data leak

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Law firm representing thousands says some already killed and others in hiding as a result of government ‘blunder’

When Abdullah received an email from the British government saying his details had been included in the military data leak, it became “the worst day in all time”.

Speaking from Afghanistan, where he is in hiding, Abdullah fears he will be tortured and killed.

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Former head of Royal Navy sacked over affair with subordinate officer

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Ministry of Defence says Ben Key’s conduct fell far short of standards expected after investigation

The former head of the Royal Navy, Ben Key, has been fired and stripped of his commission after it was discovered that the married admiral had been having an affair with a female subordinate.

The Ministry of Defence said Key’s behaviour had been found to have fallen far short of the standards expected, after an investigation triggered when the woman’s husband made a complaint.

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Palestine Action expected to be banned after vandalism of planes at RAF base

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Home secretary plans to proscribe group that broke into Brize Norton, effectively branding it a terrorist organisation

The pro-Palestine group that broke into RAF Brize Norton sparking a major security review is expected to be banned by the government next week in a move which will anger campaigners.

Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, is planning to proscribe Palestine Action, effectively branding it a terrorist organisation.

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UK plans to build six weapons factories to bolster military readiness

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Plans for £1.5bn investment in munitions manufacturing response to government’s defence review’s call to boost stockpiles

The UK will spend £1.5bn on building six munitions and energetics factories to “better deter our adversaries” as part of its long-awaited strategic defence review.

John Healey, the defence secretary, said the funds formed part of plans for an “always-on” weapons pipeline and would support the procurement of up to 7,000 UK-built long-range weapons.

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Drones, AI and new technology will dramatically change nature of war, UK defence review to warn

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MoD document expected to highlight dangers posed by Russia and China, and shortfall in UK troop numbers

Britain is facing “a new era of threat” with drones, artificial intelligence and other technologies changing the nature of warfare more fundamentally than at any other point in history, the government’s strategic defence review is expected to conclude on Monday.

The 130-page document written by three advisers to the prime minister, Keir Starmer, will warn of the “immediate and pressing” danger posed by Russia and is expected to try to draw heavily on lessons learned from the war in Ukraine.

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Revealed: the guide the MoD uses to keep its secrets … secret

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Files deemed sensitive in 144-page manual include those dealing with royal family, the Gurkhas – and UFOs

The Ministry of Defence has revealed its blueprint for censoring official documents under legislation to make government records more transparent.

The MoD’s “blue guide” for officials deciding which public records can be published was obtained under a Freedom of Information Act (FoI) request. It shows documents classified as top secret are housed at the MoD’s sensitive archive, whose location is redacted, while about 20m more routine documents are stored at Swadlincote in Derbyshire.

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Jaysley Beck inquest prompts flood of testimonies of abuse in UK military

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Ministry of Defence says lessons learned from death will make military safer, but victims and families say they have heard it all before

A soldier left suicidal after complaints about a senior officer were ignored. Two women told they needed to grow up or their heads would be banged together after they complained about sexual harassment by their major. A servicewoman raped and left with post-traumatic stress disorder while her attacker was given a slap on the wrist.

Online army forums have been flooded this week with testimonies of abuse – and the military’s failure to tackle it – sparked by the inquest into the death of 19-year-old gunner Jaysley Beck. The head of the army, Gen Sir Roly Walker, has expressed his disgust and suggested senior ranks may even be “actively complicit” in abusive behaviour. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has promised that lessons will be learned.

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‘Flat packing them’: soldier says SAS described killing Afghans in casual way

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Inquiry hears elite forces had a ‘kill all males on target whether they posed a threat or not’ policy in Afghanistan

Afghans who were killed by members of the SAS in Afghanistan were described dismissively as having been “flat packed” according to revealing testimony given by a former member of the elite force’s sister unit to a public inquiry.

The soldier, known only as N1799, said he had been party to a conversation with a member of the SAS in 2011 who had served in Afghanistan, in which he had been “shocked by the age and methods” used to kill Afghans.

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Royal Navy chief apologises for ‘intolerable’ misogyny in Submarine Service

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Ben Key confirms several personnel have been sacked, demoted or disciplined as a result of investigations

The head of the Royal Navy has issued an unreserved apology for “intolerable” misogyny in the Submarine Service, after a series of investigations across the navy exposed sexual harassment, bullying and assault of women within its ranks.

First Sea Lord Adm Sir Ben Key said he was “truly sorry” to the women who had suffered “misogyny, bullying and other unacceptable behaviours” while serving their country. “We must be better than this and do better than we have,” he said.

Senior figures forced juniors to tell them ‘shagging dits’, or personal sexual stories.

“Sniffing”, the practice of following the few women around, was “rife”, with women seen as “legitimate targets”.

“At least” one report of rape.

Those in command forced juniors to show them “sports photos”, compromising pictures of their partners, before allowing them to leave the room.

Women’s underwear going missing.

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Former human rights lawyer admits fraud over Iraq war claims

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Phil Shiner sought up to £200,000 of legal aid funding to represent clients including Khuder Al-Sweady

The former human rights lawyer Phil Shiner has pleaded guilty to fraud charges linked to claims made against Iraq war veterans.

Shiner, 67, appeared at Southwark crown court on Monday and pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA). He will be sentenced on 2 December.

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