Tag: news

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Help for Heroes donations deluge crashes website after Woolwich murder

By Sharon Black

Military support charity inundated with calls and web traffic over soldier killed while wearing Help for Heroes top Help for Heroes has been swamped with donations, leading to its website crashing, after Drummer Lee Rigby was murdered while wearing one of the charity’s tops. Supporters of the military charity took to social networks in an attempt to boost its coffers after the 25-year-old was killed in Woolwich, south-east London, on Wednesday

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Lee Rigby: an ordinary soldier who died in extraordinary circumstances

By Sharon Black

Woolwich attack victim who served in Afghanistan during one of worst periods of fighting, dies on London street Lee Rigby was born in Manchester, spent a year in Cyprus, and served for six months in Afghanistan with the military during one of the most violent periods of the 12-year-long conflict. His friends and family could never have imagined that the 25-year-old would lose his life in broad daylight, on a busy London street, at the hands of two men wielding knives and boasting allegiance to a virulent form of Islamist extremism.

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Woolwich attack victim named as Lee Rigby

By Sharon Black

Man, 25, killed in Woolwich was drummer in 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and father of two-year-old boy The soldier who was killed in the knife attack in Woolwich has been named as Drummer Lee Rigby, of the 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The Ministry of Defence released his details on Thursday, a day after the stabbing near the barracks in south London where he had been stationed.

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Woolwich killing: horror on John Wilson Street

By Sharon Black

Eyewitnesses in shock as two men hack soldier to death in full public view, then ask for passersby to take photographs of them A meat cleaver is clasped in his blood-smeared left hand; the other – also stained red with human blood – waves manically as he shouts at the camera, ranting his justification for the atrocity on the streets of south-east London. At about the same time, in the nearby Musgrave primary school, the headteacher David Dixon ordered a lockdown after seeing the body of a man – believed to be a young soldier – lying on John Wilson street. If there was any doubt why this young man, who witnesses said was aged in his early 20s and wearing a Help for Heroes T-shirt, had lost his life in such a brutal fashion, that was soon quashed

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Some Afghan interpreters to be allowed to settle in Britain

By Sharon Black

Government revises earlier plan to leave most army interpreters in Afghanistan after pullout, risking Taliban reprisals About half the Afghan interpreters risking their lives for British troops are to be given settlement rights in the UK under a reworked package prepared by the coalition government.

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Falklands war: new study debunks claims of high suicide rates

By Sharon Black

• Suicide rate of veterans similar to that of general population • Vets more healthy than population as a whole • Health care and protecting soldiers increase cost of conflict • Questions over role of army in future conflicts The claim, often repeated in the media and by veterans’ groups, that more Falklands vets had killed themselves than died fighting in the actual conflict, has been roundly rejected by a study especially commissioned by the Ministry of Defence. For years there have been reports that the suicide toll of Falklands vets exceeded the 255 who were killed in action during the conflict thirty years ago. The MoD statistical study, released on Tuesday, concludes that the risk of dying as a result of suicide for the Falklands vets was no different from the general population of the UK

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British troops face longer tours in Afghanistan

By Sharon Black

Up to 3,500 troops’ time will be extended by nearly half to ensure smooth handover to Afghan forces next year, say commanders Up to 3,500 British troops will have their tours in Helmand province extended by nearly half as part of the UK’s plans to hand over security to Afghan forces and end all combat operations next year, ministers will announce on Tuesday.

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Navy carrier jets ‘can’t land in hot weather’

By Sharon Black

Report warns of problems with Joint Strike Fighter and exposes costs of MoD U-turns The hi-tech jets that will be flown from the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers cannot land on the ships in “hot, humid and low pressure weather conditions”, a report warns today. The version of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) that has been bought for the £5.5bn carriers is still in development but currently cannot land vertically – as its predecessor the Harrier jump jet could – in warm climates without jettisoning heavy payloads, the National Audit Office says.

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Christopher Geidt: the suave, shrewd and mysterious royal insider

By Sharon Black

MPs have in the past asked in the Commons whether Geidt – now the Queen’s private secretary – was a member of MI6 When the Queen turned around to reveal herself as James Bond’s spymaster in a skit for the opening ceremony of the London Olympics, jaws dropped in living rooms around the country at the audacity and humour. But for those that know Sir Christopher Geidt, the Queen’s highly trusted private secretary who has been credited with her deft presentation in recent years, it was more a case of eyebrows raised. Geidt, 63, now in his sixth year by the Queen’s side at Buckingham Palace, has a past that includes suggestions of involvement in and around the secret services.

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Welsh airfield at the centre of Britain’s drone revolution

By Sharon Black

Owner of Aberporth base, where unmanned aerial vehicles take off for tests over land and sea, says public fears are illogical It is an odd little airfield, not far from Aberporth in west Wales, a former fishing village that now survives thanks to tourists with a taste for hill walking, windswept beaches and bracing swims in Cardigan Bay. Few of the visitors venture to the former RAF base close by, and those that do are unlikely to know this small site, which was first established in the early years of the second world war, is pioneering some of the most controversial technologies in modern conflict. The Ministry of Defence uses this privately owned airfield to test its “drones” – unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)

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British military has 500 drones

By Sharon Black

Ministry of Defence in talks to increase the amount of UK airspace to fly remotely piloted weapons The British military now has 500 drones and has been looking for ways to increase the amount of UK airspace in which to fly some of them, the Guardian can reveal. The expansion of the fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is in line with the Ministry of Defence’s ambition for a third of the Royal Air Force to consist of remotely piloted aircraft by 2030. But the disclosure will dismay campaigners who have raised ethical and legal concerns over UAVs, which have been used extensively in Afghanistan, and by the CIA to target Taliban and al-Qaida leaders across the border in Pakistan

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Man cleared of murdering two soldiers at Masareene barracks

By Sharon Black

Brian Shivers acquitted at retrial that followed quashing of original conviction for Ulster shootings A man has been acquitted of murdering two British soldiers in Northern Ireland. Brian Shivers, 47, of Co Londonderry, had denied all involvement in the gun attack outside the Massereene army barracks in Antrim in which sappers Mark Quinsey, 23, and Patrick Azimkar, 21, died. Two other soldiers and two pizza delivery men were seriously injured in the shooting in March 2009.

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The brutal death of Baha Mousa

By Sharon Black

Orwell prize-shortlisted author AT Williams on why he felt compelled to spend years investigating the death of an Iraqi civilian in a British army base in Basra in 2003 Baha Mousa was just a name at first.

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Fake bomb detector salesman sentenced to 10 years

By Sharon Black

Survivors of Iraq attacks to seek £7m compensation as judge describes fraud as ‘callous confidence trick’ The survivors of lethal Baghdad truck bombs driven through checkpoints equipped with fake bomb detectors are to lay claim to at least £7m of the assets of the Somerset fraudster who sold them. An Old Bailey judge sentenced Jim McCormick, 57, to 10 years in jail on Thursday for a fraud he described as the worst he could imagine and “a callous confidence trick”. Now a list of around 200 people either injured or related to the 95 killed in a double bombing on the Iraqi ministries of justice and foreign affairs in 2009 will be presented to the UK authorities

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Fake bomb detector conman jailed for 10 years

By Sharon Black

James McCormick, who sold more than £55m worth of fake detectors likely to have caused Iraqi deaths, jailed for 10 years A fraudster who sold more than £55m worth of fake bomb detectors to Iraq and other security hot spots has been jailed for 10 years.

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SAS sniper Danny Nightingale gets retrial over illegally possessing pistol

By Sharon Black

Sergeant Danny Nightingale pleaded not guilty to charges after having conviction quashed by appeal court judges An SAS sniper faces a retrial over illegally possessing a pistol and ammunition – despite a last-minute claim prosecutors acted improperly by consulting on the case. Sergeant Danny Nightingale on Wednesday pleaded not guilty to illegally possessing a Glock 9mm pistol and more than 300 rounds of ammunition.

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Afghanistan roadside bomb kills three British soldiers

By Sharon Black

David Cameron pays tribute to soldiers after explosion that also injured another six UK service personnel Three British soldiers have been killed and several others injured after the heavily armoured vehicle they were travelling in was hit by a large roadside bomb while they were on a routine patrol in Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday the men had been killed on Tuesday in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province, on the border of Kandahar just north of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. It is understood six other Britons were injured in the explosion, which happened while the soldiers were inside a Mastiff troop carrier – a 15-tonne vehicle which is regarded as one of the safest operated by the British military

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Afghan blast kills British troops

By Sharon Black

Three dead after roadside bomb attack on patrol vehicle in Helmand province, Ministry of Defence confirms Three British soldiers have been killed in a roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed. The soldiers were on a routine patrol when their vehicle was struck by an improvised bomb in Nahr-e Saraj district, Helmand province, on Tuesday, the military said.