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Britain (2d part)

- On April 29, 2007, we were told that Special Forces have been rushed to Iraq to "protect" Prince Harry ahead of his tour of duty in that country in view of possible rebel attacks. The army is aware that militia groups are claiming to know when his regiment -the blues and royals- will arrive in the country. The prince is all set to head a group of men in armoured reconnaissance vehicles in Maysan, currently under the control of Iraqi forces.
- On April 30, 2007, five men have been jailed for life for a UK bomb plot linked to al-Qaeda that could have killed hundreds of people. Jurors in the year-long Old Bailey trial heard of plans to target a shopping centre, nightclub and the gas network with a giant fertiliser bomb.
- Survivors and relatives of victims of the 7 July attacks were stepping up the pressure for a public inquiry into MI5's handling of intelligence on April 30, 2007. We were told at the end of a year-long terror trial that MI5 had two of the 7 July bombers under surveillance a year before the attacks. Ministers are opposed to an inquiry but a parliamentary committee will consider why the bombers were not picked up.
- Calls for a fresh inquiry into the 7/7 attacks have grown on May 2, 2007, after it emerged MPs were not shown photographs linking one of the bombers to known militants. The Intelligence and Security Committee probing 7/7 did not see all of the pictures taken in 2004 showing Mohammad Sidique Khan with terrorist suspects.
- The wife of 7 July bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan is among four people being questioned on May 9, 2007, in connection with the 2005 attacks, which killed 52 people. Officers arrested Hasina Patel her brother Arshad Patel and Khalid Khaliq in West Yorkshire; Imran Motala was held in Birmingham. They are being held in London on suspicion of commissioning, preparing or instigating acts of terrorism. Seven addresses in the West Midlands and West Yorkshire are being searched.
- Two British men were convicted on May 9, 2007, of leaking a secret memo about a 2004 meeting between US President George Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair about the war in Iraq. David Keogh, a government communications officer, and Leo O'Connor, a former political researcher, were found guilty of breaching Britain's Official Secrets Act after a three-week jury trial at London's Central Criminal Court -the Old Bailey. Both will be sentenced tomorrow and face a maximum of two years in jail. Prosecutors claimed the two men put troops' lives at risk by attempting to leak the memo, which recorded ``highly sensitive'' strategic discussions between Bush, Blair and other senior officials at an Aug. 16, 2004, meeting in Washington. Keogh admitted intercepting the letter while working alone at the government's ``Pindar'' communications centre. O'Connor slipped the document into the papers of his boss, former Labour Member of Parliament Anthony Clarke, who alerted authorities. Keogh was unanimously convicted by an 11-person jury on two counts of breaching the Official Secrets Act after 10 hours of deliberations. O'Connor was convicted by a 10-1 vote.
- Gordon Brown plans to fly to Iraq to review British policy and troop numbers after using the launch of his leadership campaign on May 11, 2007, to try to make a decisive break with the Blair era. The Chancellor said he would govern Britain in a different way as he lambasted the excessive use of spin and the cult of celebrity, and pledged to restore trust in Labour and politics. But he also accepted for the first time that mistakes had been made in Iraq, saying that much more must be done to promote economic development and political reconciliation. His decision to make an early visit to see army chiefs on the ground and the Iraqi Government will raise speculation that Mr Brown would like to speed up the timetable for British withdrawal. British forces are due to hand over control of Basra to Iraqi forces by the end of the year, when troop levels will be reduced from about 7,000 to 2,000.
- The widow of Alexander Litvinenko dismissed claims on June 3, 2007, that British secret services were involved in his death. She called on the G8 to support the UK's request to get Mr Lugovoi extradited from Russia to face trial.
- George Galloway has come under heavy fire on June 9, 2007, after an official report found his Iraq charity was bankrolled by illicit deals involving Saddam Hussain's regime. The Charity Commission said the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow behaved "unacceptably" by failing to ensure cheques for tens of thousands of pounds were clean. Galloway insisted the report was "sloppy, misleading and partial" and "palpably false". Commission chief executive Andrew Hind said the issues it raised went to the heart of trust in charities. "It is not acceptable for charities to receive funds from improper sources," he said. In its report the commission said Galloway may have known his Mariam Appeal fund for Iraqi children, which campaigned against UN sanctions on Iraq, received massive sums diverted from aid money.
- Some £230,000 in improper donations was funnelled into the charity. The cash was paid by Jordanian businessman Fawaz Zureikat, chairman of the charity, who allegedly gave kickback payments to the Baghdad regime in return for a major contract under the UN's oil-for-food programme. The report made clear cash given to the Mariam Appeal was properly spent. But after a 16-month inquiry, it found that the Mariam trustees, who included Galloway, failed to "properly discharge their duty of care" by checking the source of the money.
- The Law Lords ruled on June 13, 2007, that UK human rights laws do apply to a civilian who died in British custody in Iraq. They upheld part of an appeal by relatives of Baha Mousa, who died while he was in British army custody in Basra in 2003. The judgement could lead to an independent public inquiry. But appeals in the cases of five other Iraqi civilians, who were shot in the streets of Basra while Britain was the occupying power there, were dismissed.
- Seven men have been jailed on June 15, 2007, for up to 26 years over an al-Qaida-linked plot to kill thousands in the UK and US. They were in a "sleeper cell" led by Dhiren Barot, who is already serving a life sentence. Barot planned attacks including blowing apart a London Underground tunnel and bombings using an explosives-packed limousine and a dirty radiation device. Six of the men admitted conspiracy to cause explosions and a seventh was found guilty of conspiracy to murder.
- A car bomb found in central London on June 29, 2007, would have caused "carnage" if it had exploded. A controlled explosion was carried out on the car, packed with 60 litres of petrol, gas cylinders and nails, in Haymarket, near Piccadilly Circus. An ambulance crew saw smoke coming from the green Mercedes, near the Tiger Tiger nightclub. London's Park Lane was later cordoned off while a suspicious vehicle was investigated.
- On Saturday June 30, 2007, anti-terrorism police launched a huge manhunt for the people who planted two car bombs in central London. Two Mercedes -left on Friday outside a club in Haymarket and a nearby street- contained petrol, gas cylinders and nails but the devices did not detonate. On Saturday a blazing car was driven into Glasgow Airport's terminal building. Police said it was too early to say if it was linked.
- Britain will not yield despite a sustained threat from people associated with al-Qaeda, Gordon Brown has said after the attempted car bombings. The prime minister was speaking after a burning car driven into Glasgow Airport on Saturday June 30, 2007, was linked to two car bombs found in London's West End on Friday. Five people have been arrested over the attacks -two at the airport, two later in Cheshire and a fifth in Liverpool. Houses in Staffordshire, Liverpool and near Glasgow are also being searched.
- On July 2, 2007, police are hunting at least one person over attempted car bombings in London and at Glasgow airport. Five people -none thought to be British- have been arrested so far in Paisley, Liverpool and Cheshire. Police are linking the failed bombings and the UK remains on high alert amid fears of a possible further attack.
- The police source said on July 2, 2007, Bilal Abdulla, another doctor called Mohammed Asha and his wife were among the arrested for the recent attacks in the UK. Abdulla qualified as a doctor in Baghdad in 2004 and is a registered medical practitioner in Britain. A switchboard operator at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, near Scotland's biggest city Glasgow, said Abdulla worked there. Asha qualified as a doctor in 2004 in Jordan and is also a registered medical practitioner
- On July 4, 2007, three al-Qaida-linked men have admitted inciting terrorist attacks against non-Muslims on websites and in e-mails. Younes Tsouli, 23, of west London, and Waseem Mughal, 24, of Chatham, Kent, changed their pleas on Monday. A third man, Tariq Al-Daour, 21, of west London, has now changed his plea at Woolwich Crown Court to guilty. The three men are the first people to be convicted of inciting terrorist murder via the internet. They will be sentenced on Thursday.
- An immediate review of NHS recruitment will be carried out following the attempted bomb attacks in London and Glasgow, Gordon Brown said on July 4, 2007. The review comes after eight suspects with links to the health service were arrested. Two are brothers. Meanwhile, security experts are considering relaxing the terror threat to the UK from "critical" to "severe".
- Bilal Abdullah was an angry militant Islamist long before he became a doctor in Britain or a chief suspect in last week's attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow, according to acquaintances. The Iraqi doctor spoke fluent English, studied for his British medical exams in Cambridge and worked part time at a local Staples office supply store.

- Foreign imams who do not learn English should be banned from giving sermons in UK mosques, a Labour peer said on July 6, 2007. A survey suggests imams lack professional and language skills to tackle the threat of radicalism among young British Muslims. Only 8% of imams preaching in British mosques were born in the UK. Research at 300 mosques indicated only 6% speak English as a first language. The use of English is becoming more prevalent at Friday sermons but says more investigation is required to assess the frequency and quality.
- On July 7, 2007, a man has been remanded in custody after appearing in court in connection with the suspected car bomb attempts in London and at Glasgow airport. Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdullah, 27, was accused at Westminster magistrates of conspiracy to cause explosions. He is the first person charged over the suspected attack attempts. The charge carries a maximum life sentence. Meanwhile, police have been granted more time to question five of the six other people detained in the UK. The sixth man, Kafeel Ahmed, is in a Glasgow hospital suffering from severe burns and another man is being held in Australia as part of the inquiry into the incidents.
- On July 10, 2007, the UK Foreign Office condemned as "unacceptable" Russia's refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. Russia has said its constitution did not allow a citizen to be extradited.
- On July 10, 2007, Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, warned Gordon Brown that Britain would be hit with "a very precise response" in retaliation for the knighthood given to the novelist Salman Rushdie.
- On Wednesday July 11, 2007, our men convicted of the 21 July bomb plot have been jailed for life, with a minimum tariff of 40 years each. Muktar Ibrahim, 29, Yassin Omar, 26, Ramzi Mohammed, 25, and Hussain Osman, 28, were found guilty on Monday.
- Gordon Brown said on July 11, 2007, Britain would be under threat from al-Qaida terrorists "irrespective" of the war in Iraq. He added it was not possible to be "secure" against a global group of "extremist" cells with a "dogmatic and vicious" attitude. The UK would be threatened "whatever was happening in Afghanistan or Iraq". He also said the "fight for the future" with extremists had to be fought "not just militarily" but also on a "cultural and ideological" level.
- Two senior peers supported police calls on July 16, 2007, to be allowed to hold terror suspects longer before charging them. The government's independent reviewer of terrorism laws Lord Carlile said senior judges, not politicians, should set the limit -currently 28 days. Security Minister Lord West said the complexity of the threat meant police would need longer to question suspects.
- Exiled Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky claimed on July 18, 2007, that UK intelligence officers thwarted a plot to kill him. Mr Berezovsky had been warned about the alleged plot by sources in Russia and Scotland Yard.
- No-one is to face charges after the 16-month cash-for-honours police inquiry we were told on July 19, 2007. Four people were arrested, including two of Tony Blair's aides, during the £1m probe into whether honours were given in exchange for party donations. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said it was right that police had investigated the "very serious allegations".
- Two men arrested under the Terrorism Act have been freed without charge after a suspicious substance was identified as "non-hazardous" oil. The police searched a Bristol flat and found two 25-litre containers labelled as holding hydrogen peroxide. One of the men is from Afghanistan while the other is Somali.
- The decision to allow the sailors and marines seized by Iran to sell their stories to the press has been strongly criticised by the Commons Foreign Affairs committee of MPs on July 21, 2007. They also criticise the government for only contacting an Iranian official for help after his television interview.
- Britain is to get a "unified border force" to boost the fight against terrorism, the prime minister said on July 25, 2007. He also announced a review of allowing intercept evidence in court, and plans to double from 28 days the time police can hold suspects without charge. But the Tories and Lib Democrats said any border force should include police officers, new resources and new powers. Officers from the Border and Immigration Agency, Revenue and Customs and UK Visas will be brought together to create a "single primary checkpoint" for passport control and customs.
- There were "serious weaknesses" in the Metropolitan Police's handling of information after the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes we were told on August 2, 2007. Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman "misled" the public, the Independent Police Complaints Commission ruled.
- A badly burned man detained after the suspected terror attack at Glasgow Airport has died in a Glasgow hospital on August 2, 2007. Kafeel Ahmed was one of two men held at the airport after a Jeep struck the terminal and burst into flames. The man from Bangalore, India, had suffered burns to 90% of his body when he was arrested. The second man in the vehicle -Iraqi doctor Bilal Talal Samad Abdullah- has since been charged with conspiracy to cause explosions.
- On August 13, 2007, dozens of police officers checked a camp set up by climate change protesters near Heathrow Airport. Up to 2,000 people are expected to pitch their tents for a week-long protest against plans to expand the airport, and aviation generally. About 250 campaigners have already arrived at the Camp for Climate Action. The protesters say action will be peaceful and they will not try to get onto runways. A day of unspecified "mass direct action" is set for Sunday.
- On September 20, 2007, we were told that the UK now has a stockpile of 100 tonnes of plutonium -enough to make thousands of nuclear bombs. The plutonium mainly comes from reprocessed spent uranium fuel from nuclear power plants.
- Armed forces personnel serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are to get a council tax rebate, under UK government plans released on September 25, 2007. Soldiers will be given a 25% rebate on the average bill -which works out as £140 for a six-month tour of duty.
- The number of terrorist plots in the UK is "mounting" and the "magnitude" of their ambitions growing, Met Police chief Sir Ian Blair said on October 9, 2007. He was making the case to the Commons Home Affairs committee for extending the current 28-day limit for detaining terror suspects without charge.
- Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, said on November 5, 2007, that there are at least 2,000 people in the UK who pose a threat to national security because of their support for terrorism. He added there had been a rise of 400 since November 2006 some as young as 15 were being recruited for terrorist-related activity by al-Qaida. Resources that could be devoted to counter-terrorism were instead being used to protect the UK against spying by Russia, China and others, he added.
- A 23-year-old who called herself the "Lyrical Terrorist" has become the first woman in the UK to be convicted under the Terrorism Act on November 8, 2007. Samina Malik, from Southall, west London, was found guilty at the Old Bailey of owning terrorist manuals. The jury heard Malik had written extremist poems praising Osama Bin Laden, supporting martyrdom and discussing beheading. She had earlier been found not guilty of the more serious charge, under Section 57 of the Act, of possessing an article for a terrorist purpose. She denied the charges.
- The Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri can be extradited to the US to face terrorism charges, a court ruled on November 15, 2007. The Egyptian-born preacher is currently serving a seven-year jail term in the UK for inciting murder and race hate. He is wanted by the American authorities on 11 charges. The decision has to be ratified by the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith.
- On November 15, 2007, we were told that a new round of cross-party talks is to be held as ministers "seek consensus" for extending the 28 day limit for holding terror suspects without charge up to 58 days.
- On December 6, 2007, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced plans to extend the period that terrorism suspects can be held without charge for up to 42 days. Ms Smith said 42 days would be needed only in "exceptional circumstances".
- A woman, Samina Malik, who called herself a "Lyrical Terrorist", has been given a nine-month suspended jail sentence on December 6, 2007. She was found guilty at the Old Bailey of owning terrorist pamphlets, including The Al-Qaida Manual. The jury was told a "library" of extremist Islamist literature was found in her bedroom and Malik had written poems praising Osama Bin Laden. Malik is the first woman to be convicted under the Terrorism Act 2000.
- On December 23, 2007, Brazil's government expressed its "unhappiness" that no senior police officers involved in Jean Charles de Menezes's shooting will be disciplined. The independent police watchdog had cleared 11 of the 15 officers involved, and has now ruled the other four senior officers will face no further action.
- On February 9, 2008, the Archbishop of Canterbury attracted widespread criticism after appearing to back the adoption of some aspects of Sharia law in the UK. Dr Rowan Williams said the UK had to "face up to the fact" some citizens did not relate to the UK legal system.
- On February 9, 2008, the Archbishop of Canterbury defended his comments on Sharia law, following widespread criticism. A statement on his website said that he "certainly did not call for its introduction as some kind of parallel jurisdiction to the civil law". However, at least two General Synod members have called for Dr Rowan Williams to resign following the row.
- A pilot wrongly accused of training the 9/11 hijackers is entitled to claim damages, the Court of Appeal ruled on February 14, 2008. Judges said evidence suggested "serious defaults" in the decision to detain Lotfi Raissi in prison for nearly five months after a US extradition request. The ruling means the government has to reconsider the 33-year-old's claim for compensation, which it had refused. Mr Raissi wants an apology and says his claim may run into millions of pounds. The government has said it may appeal.
- Following a request under Freedom of Information laws Britain's Foreign Office on Monday February 18, 2008, released an early version of a 2002 dossier of pre-war intelligence on Iraq that became vital to Tony Blair's case for war. The document includes references to intelligence claims that Iraq had acquired uranium and had equipment necessary to produce chemical weapons. But the file does not contain a claim that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes. Campaigners allege the assertion was inserted into later drafts of the document shortly before it was published on the orders of Blair's office. Miliband insisted the early draft, produced by then Foreign Office press office chief John Williams, was not used as the basis for later documents, drafted by the Joint Intelligence Committee.
- British officials censored a recently released draft dossier on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) for fear it would harm relations with Israel we were told on Thursday February 21, 2008. British-Israeli relations would have suffered if a reference in the draft was made public. The 30-page draft, drawn up by the Foreign Office's then communications director John Williams on July 24, 2002, and classified "confidential", had been the subject of a request under Britain's freedom of information laws. It was finally released to the public earlier this week.
- British servicemen should wear their uniforms with pride while off-duty, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Friday March 7, 2008, after commanders at an RAF base warned airmen to don civilian clothes to avoid abuse. The premier voiced anger after the Royal Air Force base at Wittering in eastern England issued the advice to personnel, fearing abuse from locals opposed to Britain's military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Thousands of protesters gathered in London and Glasgow Saturday March 15, 2008, ahead of the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, calling for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. In the capital, activists rallied at Trafalgar Square before marching the short distance to parliament while in Glasgow, demonstrators walked from the city centre to the Glasgow Green Park on the banks of the River Clyde. Police in London said there were 10,000 on the streets but organisers the Stop the War Coalition put the crowds at between 30,000 to 40,000. In Glasgow, Strathclyde Police said that there were between 1,000 to 1,500 protesters at the height of the march there. A number of demonstrations are taking place around the world as the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq on March 20 approaches.
- Head teachers should allow imams, rabbis and priests to offer religious instruction to pupils in all state schools, teachers' leaders said on March 24, 2008. The National Union of Teachers (NUT) said the move would be a way to reunite divided communities.
- Eight men accused of plotting to blow up passenger planes mid-air as they crossed the Atlantic made Islamic martyrdom videos, a court has heard on April 4, 2008. Six of the eight men recorded videos in which one warns of "martyrdom operations" which would "rain down" on non-believers. They also researched other targets, including power stations and London's Canary Wharf. All eight men deny conspiring to murder and endangering aircraft in 2006.
- On April 9, 2008, Law Lords have rejected an attempt to force an inquiry into the Iraq war. The mothers of two soldiers killed in Basra said Tony Blair's government had failed to ensure in advance that the 2003 invasion was lawful and justified. Had ministers gained "reliable" legal advice the war might not have happened and the men might not have died, they argued in their appeal.
- Three men helped the 7 July suicide bombers to find potential targets in London, a court heard on April 10, 2008. Waheed Ali, Sadeer Saleem and Mohammed Shakil scouted for possible locations, including the Natural History Museum and the London Eye. The men were not directly responsible for the 2005 attacks but they shared the bombers' "objectives". All three men deny conspiracy to cause an explosion between 2004 and 2005.
- On Friday April 11, 2008, a doctor, Sabeel Ahmed, pleaded guilty to withholding information about the car bomb attack on Glasgow Airport.
- On Sunday April 13, 2008, the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, described the terrorism threat facing the UK as "severe" and "growing". She said 30 terror plots were being investigated and police needed to be able to detain suspects for longer. But one Labour MP said he hoped the government would be defeated over its plans to extend the time suspects can be held without charge to 42 days.
- A terror fund-raiser handed himself into police on April 18, 2008, after jumping bail for 10 days during his trial. Shah Jalal Hussain, 25, was found guilty of terrorist fund-raising and will be sentenced alongside five other men shortly. He surrendered at Kingston Crown Court a day after his conviction and was arrested by police. He had been given bail but went missing from his home when the jury began deliberations on 8 April.
- On April 23, 2008 four men serving at least 40 years for the failed 21 July 2007 suicide bombs have lost a Court of Appeal bid to challenge their convictions. Three judges rejected applications brought by Muktar Said Ibrahim, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussain Osman for leave to appeal. They had tried to detonate rucksacks filled with explosives on three Tube trains and a bus in 2005.

- A man arrested on May 23, 2008, after an explosion at an Exeter restaurant has "a history of mental illness" and was a recent convert to Islam. Nicky Reilly suffered serious facial injuries when a device detonated at the Princess shopping centre in the city. He is now in police custody in hospital and officers have also searched an address linked to him in Plymouth.

- The civil servant at the centre of a police investigation into misplaced top secret government documents was suspended from his duties, the government said Thursday. The Cabinet Office confirmed On June 11, 2008, that two secret documents were left on a train by a civil servant and were subsequently handed to the BBC. The documents, in an orange cardboard envelope, were left on the seat of a train which was about to pull out of Waterloo station. The senior civil servant, who has not been identified, was interviewed as part of an internal government inquiry after the files were left on the train, and will be suspended as inquiries into the matter continue. The intelligence assessment of Al-Qaeda was seven pages long and so sensitive that it was marked "for UK/US/Canadian and Australian eyes only", the BBC reported. The other pertained to the state of Iraq's security forces and contained "embarrassing" revelations.

- A terror suspect thought to have "direct links" with Osama Bin Laden has been freed on bail on July 3, 2008. The Algerian, who can be identified only as "U", has been released from Long Lartin high-security prison, in Worcestershire after more than seven years in jail awaiting deportation. It comes two weeks after Abu Qatada, described as Bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe, was freed on bail.

- Britain's defence ministry will pay a total of nearly three million pounds to the family of an Iraqi man who died in the custody of British troops and to eight others who were abused we were told on Thursday July 10, 2008. Baha Mousa, a 26-year-old hotel receptionist, was badly beaten and died after being arrested on suspicion of being an insurgent in Basra, southern Iraq, in 2003. Seven British troops were court-martialled over the case last year but all were cleared bar one, Corporal Donald Payne, who admitted inhumane treatment and was jailed for a year.

- Three men accused of plotting to blow up transatlantic planes admitted on July 14, 2008, conspiring to cause explosions. Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain also admitted conspiring to cause a public nuisance by making videos threatening bombings. Two other defendants, Ibrahim Savant and Umar Islam, also pleaded guilty to the public nuisance charges. The Woolwich Crown Court jury has yet to rule on conspiracy to murder charges which the five and three others deny.

- The British government should not rely on US assurances that it does not use torture MPs said on July 20, 2008, as the UK and US differ on their definitions of what constitutes torture and it urged the UK to check US claims. The MPs also said the government should check claims that Britain is not used by the US for "rendition" flights. The committee highlighted the technique of "water-boarding" - a practice which simulates drowning. The US describes it as "a legal technique used in a specific set of circumstances" and President Bush has refused to ban it.
- On July 23, 2008, five men who were jailed for plotting a massive fertiliser bomb attack have lost their appeal against conviction. The Court of Appeal in London upheld the convictions of the five men, who were jailed after Britain's longest-ever terrorism prosecution. Omar Khyam, Anthony Garcia, Jawad Akbar, Waheed Mahmood and Salahuddin Amin planned to target nightclubs or a major shopping centre near London.

- On July 23, 2008, radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri has been refused leave to appeal to the House of Lords against his extradition to the US. US prosecutors want the 50-year-old to face trial on charges which include providing support to al-Qaeda. The Egypt-born preacher is currently serving a seven-year jail term in the UK for inciting murder and race hate. His lawyers are now likely to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

- Prosecutors said Monday July 28, 2008, that there was not enough proof to charge anyone in the death of a British journalist in southern Iraq during the 2003 U.S.-led invasion though forensic evidence suggests he was killed by American forces. Terry Lloyd, 50, was working for Britain's Independent Television News when his four-man team was caught in crossfire between U.S. and Iraqi forces. The four were among the few Western reporters who covered the fighting on their own instead of embedding with U.S. or British forces. Lloyd's Lebanese translator also was killed and the body of a French cameraman has never been found. A Belgian colleague survived. A 2006 British inquest ruled that U.S. forces unlawfully killed the reporter by shooting him in the head as he lay in the back of an improvised ambulance. But Britain's Crown Prosecution Service said Monday it was not possible to say who fired the fatal shot.

- The youngest person in Britain arrested and convicted under the Terrorism Act has been sentenced to two years in a young offenders' institution on September 19, 2008. Hammaad Munshi was 16 when he was arrested in 2006. Police found a guide to making napalm on his computer. The Old Bailey judge said he had been influenced by "fanatical extremists". His family backed the sentence, but said the case showed how easily a teenager could be groomed.

- Two alleged terrorists escaped in rickshaws after leaving car bombs close to a night club in central London we were told on October 10, 2008. The devices planted by Dr Bilal Abdulla and now-deceased Kafeel Ahmed were found after Tiger Tiger staff called an ambulance for a customer. CCTV footage showing the men driving a car filled with explosives into Glasgow airport was also shown. Dr Abdulla, 29, and Dr Mohammed Asha, 27, deny conspiracy to murder.

- On October 15, 2008, a Muslim convert admitted launching a failed suicide nail-bomb attack on a Devon restaurant. Nicky Reilly pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to attempted murder at Exeter's Giraffe restaurant on 22 May. He had been preparing the attack when a bomb went off in his hands in a toilet cubicle. Reilly, who has learning difficulties, was "preyed upon and radicalised by others". He will be sentenced on 21 November.

- On October 21, 2008, five men have been arrested under the Terrorism Act in a series of dawn raids across the Birmingham area. The men are being held on suspicion of being involved in the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism.

- An NHS doctor accused of attempted car bombings in London and at Glasgow Airport has admitted on November 17, 2008, that according to English law he is a terrorist. Bilal Abdulla, 29, is alleged to have crashed into the airport in a Jeep laden with petrol and gas canisters. But he told a jury he never wanted to kill or injure anyone. Dr Abdulla and Dr Mohammed Asha deny conspiracies to murder and to cause explosions. The defence has said that Dr Abdulla and friend Kafeel Ahmed, 28, wanted to highlight the plight of people in Iraq and Afghanistan with a series of incendiary device attacks in June 2007. Dr Asha is accused of supplying them with cash and advice.

- A British man, Rangzieb Ahmed, who became the first al-Qaida suspect convicted in the UK of directing terrorism, has been sentenced to life in jail. He was found guilty of the offence on Thursday December 18, 2008, following a trial at Manchester Crown Court. The judge described him as an extremely dangerous man. Ahmed was also found guilty of being a member of terror group al-Qaida, along with Habib Ahmed, who was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Habib, 29, was given nine years for being a member of the terror group and an additional year for possessing a document for terror-related purposes.

- On January 11, 2009, Prince Harry apologised for using offensive language to describe a Pakistani member of his army platoon. A video showed the prince calls one of his then Sandhurst colleagues a "Paki". St James's Palace said he had used the term three years ago as a nickname about a friend and without any malice. In another clip, he is heard calling another cadet a "raghead".

- On Thursday February 19, 2009, radical preacher Abu Qatada has been awarded £2,500 in compensation by the European Court of Human Rights. Judges ruled that his detention without trial in the UK under anti-terrorism powers breached his human rights. On Wednesday, Law Lords ruled that Abu Qatada, 48, could be deported to Jordan despite fears he could face torture. Abu Qatada has been held both in Belmarsh high security prison and under 22-hour home curfew. His lawyers have already submitted an application to the European Court appealing against his deportation.

- The UK resident freed from Guantanamo Bay, Binyam Mohamed, said on Friday March 13, 2009, he would not have faced torture or extraordinary rendition but for British involvement in his case. US interrogators told him, "This is the British file and this is the American file". He said he wanted to see ex-President George Bush put on trial and, if there was evidence, former UK PM Tony Blair. The UK says it does not condone torture, but will examine any claims. The US has dropped all charges against Mr Mohamed.

- On March 18, 2009, we were told that new guidance for intelligence officers on interviewing overseas detainees will be published in an attempt to show the UK government's opposition to torture. Gordon Brown wants to restore public faith in the security services and he condemned torture "absolutely". It follows concerns about the treatment of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyman Mohamed.
- There is an increased risk terrorists could get hold of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons to attack the UK, the Home Office has said on Monday March 23, 2009. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith unveiled a new UK strategy to tackle an evolved terrorist threat. It warns failed states such as Iraq have made it easier to obtain materials for weapons such as dirty bombs. Ms Smith said the threat is "severe" - meaning an attack is "highly likely" and "could happen without warning".

- Radical Islamic cleric Abu Qatada has been issuing messages to his followers from his British jail cell we were told on April 5, 2009. Statements said to be from the Jordanian have appeared recently on a number of extremist websites. The Quilliam Foundation think tank say Abu Qatada has released three letters from prison in four months. But the Prison Service says Quilliam's claims are "completely unfounded".

- On April 10, 2009, police are continuing to search 10 properties across the north-west of England in connection with an alleged planned terror bomb attack. They have found pictures of popular Manchester shopping centres and a nightclub. Twelve men -11 of them Pakistani, and most of them students- are still being questioned over the alleged plot. Gordon Brown and Pakistan's president are "committed to working together" to combat terror.

- Downing Street said on June 3, 2009, there is "strong reason to believe" that a British citizen has been killed by al-Qaeda militants in north-west Africa. Edwin Dyer was kidnapped in Niger in January, but was being held in Mali. The group had said it would kill Mr Dyer if the British government refused to release radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada from a UK prison.

- On June 10, 2009, three terror suspects whose freedom is restricted by control orders have won a legal battle in the House of Lords over the use of secret evidence. Nine Law Lords unanimously ruled it was unfair individuals should be kept in ignorance of the case against them. They did not quash the men's orders, but one warned the ruling could spell the end of the control orders system. The home secretary called the decision "disappointing" but said all control orders would remain in force for now.

- On June 15, 2009, the prime minister has told MPs that the official inquiry into the war in Iraq will be held in private, but will disclose "all but the most sensitive information". Speaking to the House of Commons, Gordon Brown said it was the right time to learn lessons from what had happened in Iraq from July 2001 to July 2009.

- On June 19, 2009, Gordon Brown has been forced to open up the terms of the newly announced Iraq war inquiry after facing hostility to his plans from a broad coalition of former generals, former Prime Minister John Major and peers from all parties. The prime minister's official spokesman released a letter from Brown to Sir John Chilcot, the former civil servant charged with heading up the independent five-strong inquiry team of privy councillors, laying out opportunities for the inquiry to involve the public. In the letter, Brown told Chilcot if he wished he could hold the sessions with the families of those who died in service in public.

- Four families of servicemen killed in Snatch Land Rovers in Iraq and Afghanistan are to sue the Ministry of Defence we were told on June 19, 2009. They claim the vehicles are too lightly armoured to cope with the weapons used against them and that the MoD was negligent in allowing their use. However, the MoD maintains the vehicles are vital equipment and suitable for the jobs they must perform. Since 2003, some 37 UK personnel have been killed while using the vehicles.

- The "huge job" of going through vast amounts of material and evidence means the Iraq inquiry could continue into 2011 says Chairman Sir John Chilcot on July 30, 2009. Launching the inquiry he said it would be "as open as possible" with hearings televised and streamed online. But he said some hearings would be held in private for national security reasons or to allow "more candour".

- On August 1, 2009, a senior Tory MP has asked the home secretary whether al-Qaeda sympathisers were mistakenly recruited by MI5. Patrick Mercer, chairman of the Home Affairs counter-terror sub-committee, said sources told him six had sought to infiltrate the security service. Four were ejected at the initial vetting stage but two got "further down the system". The Home Office declined to comment but Whitehall officials firmly rejected the claims, saying there was no evidence.

- On August 9, 2009, two cabinet ministers strongly denied allegations of collusion in the abuse of terrorist suspects overseas. But Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Home Secretary Alan Johnson said it was impossible to remove all risk when using intelligence obtained overseas. This came as a committee of MPs urged a probe into the transfer of terror suspects through UK territories. Last week a committee of MPs and peers called for an independent inquiry into claims of UK complicity in torture.

- The head of MI6 said on August 10, 2009, there is no torture and "no complicity in torture" by the British secret service. Sir John Scarlett said his officers were committed to human rights and liberal democracy, but also had to protect the UK against terrorism. There has been growing concern about the role of the intelligence services in the mistreatment of suspects abroad.

- On September 12, 2009, prosecutors said they will seek a retrial of three men who had been accused of taking part in a plan to blow up transatlantic airliners.
Ibrahim Savant, 28, Arafat Khan, 28, and Waheed Zaman, 25, were found not guilty of plotting to bomb aircraft. But jurors at Woolwich Crown Court failed to decide whether they were guilty of conspiracy to murder. Three other men were convicted of plotting to bomb planes flying between London to North America.

- An Iraqi man has told a public inquiry on September 28, 2009, he heard his friend Baha Mousa begging for mercy while they were both being detained by British soldiers. Witness D1 said he heard the voice of Baha Mousa when they were held in a detention centre in 2003.

- A service of commemoration honouring British military and civilian personnel who served in Iraq has been held at St Paul's Cathedral, London on October 9, 2009. Veterans and relatives of the 179 killed took part in the service, with the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, used his address to praise the efforts of the troops in Iraq. But he criticised policy makers for failing to consider the human and other costs of the conflict. Tony Blair, prime minister when the conflict began in 2003, was among the congregation, joining current PM Gordon Brown, former heads of the Army Sir Mike Jackson and Sir Richard Dannatt and former Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon.

- The father of one soldier who died in Iraq refused to shake Mr Blair's hand after the ceremony. Tony Blair, prime minister when the conflict began in 2003, was among the congregation, joining current PM Gordon Brown, former heads of the Army Sir Mike Jackson and Sir Richard Dannatt and former Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon. The father of one soldier who died in Iraq refused to shake Mr Blair's hand after the ceremony. Instead, Peter Brierley told the former PM: "I'm not shaking your hand, you've got blood on it."

- On October 17, 2009, we were told that the government will appeal against a ruling that US intelligence documents detailing the alleged torture of an ex-UK resident can be released. Ethiopian-born Binyam Mohamed, 31, who spent four years in Guantanamo Bay, claims British authorities colluded in his torture while he was in Morocco. The UK government, which stopped judges publishing the claims on national security grounds, denies any collusion. A US State Department spokesman said it was "not pleased" by the court ruling.

- On November 9, 2009, Gordon Brown has telephoned the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan to apologise after apparently misspelling his name in a letter of sympathy. Guardsman Jamie Janes, 20, from Brighton, East Sussex, was killed in an explosion in October. But Mr Brown said he was sorry "for any unintended mistake", adding that his writing could be "difficult to read".

- The UK government "distanced itself" from talk of removing Saddam Hussein in early 2001 despite concerns about his threat, the Iraq inquiry has been told on November 24, 2009. Sir Peter Ricketts, a top intelligence official at the time, said it was assumed it was not "our policy" despite growing talk in the US about the move. On the first day of public hearings, four senior diplomats and advisers gave evidence on the war's origins. Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians died during the 2003 conflict and in the years following it though estimates vary considerably.

- The 2003 invasion of Iraq was "of questionable legitimacy", Britain's then ambassador to the UN said Friday November 27, 2009, adding he had wanted another six months of diplomacy before military action was launched. Jeremy Greenstock said the United States seemed to be "preparing for conflict" despite British efforts to secure consensus following a UN resolution in November 2002 giving Saddam Hussein a last warning to disarm.

- The US believed the UK would take part in the Iraq invasion even if there were no efforts to solve the crisis via the UN, the Chilcot inquiry has been told on December 3, 2009. Ex-defence chief Lord Boyce said the US assumed in September 2002 the UK would provide the maximum troops available.

- A senior British officer has told the Iraq war inquiry on December 8, 2009, he urged Tony Blair to delay the invasion of the country two days before the conflict. Major General Tim Cross, who liaised with the US on reconstruction efforts before the invasion, said planning for after the conflict was "woefully thin". He said he briefed officials in the weeks before the war that Iraq could descend into chaos after the invasion. UK officials have said Washington did not listen to warnings on the issue.

- Britain believed Iraq had dismantled its chemical and biological weapons in the run-up to the 2003 invasion but thought it was possible they could be reassembled, John Scarlett, the former head of the country's Joint Intelligence Committee said Tuesday December 8, 2009. On March 7, 2003, Scarlett said an intelligence report revealed that "Iraq had no missiles which could reach Israel and none which could carry germ or biological weapons. The leadership had ordered the dismantlement of the missiles known as al-Hussein ... to avoid discovery, and they thought they could be quickly reassembled." A second report, made a few days later, said intelligence had been received that chemical weapons "had been disassembled and dispersed and would be difficult to reassemble." Scarlett said the March assessments didn't contradict or change the earlier belief that Saddam had access to weapons and that the regime was dismantling them. He said the reports didn't say the weapons didn't exist -but that they might be difficult to find.

- Also on December 8, 2009, the man who led UK troops into Iraq in 2003 says he was told 10 months earlier that it was a matter of "when not if" the US would pursue military action. Air Chief Marshal Sir Brian Burridge said General Tommy Franks, commander of US forces, told him in May 2002 that he hoped the UK would be "alongside". He told the Iraq inquiry the campaign was conducted to minimise the impact on Iraqi civilians and key infrastructure. The inquiry is examining UK policy towards Iraq between 2001 and 2009.

- A helicopter crash in Iraq which killed two SAS soldiers in 2007 was primarily caused by pilot error, a coroner has ruled on December 9, 2009, at an inquest into their deaths. However Herefordshire coroner David Halpern also criticised the Ministry of Defence for "indefensible procedural and maintenance errors".

- Washington called the shots on post-war Iraqi government. MI6 chief says key decisions including banning Saddam's Ba'ath party from new regime were taken in advance in Washington. Washington made the key decisions on Iraq's new administrative and military structures in the weeks after the 2003 invasion, the Iraq inquiry was told December 10, 2009. Sir John Sawers, Britain's special representative in Baghdad in the aftermath of Saddam's fall and now head of MI6, initially said in response to a question from inquiry panel member Sir Roderic Lyne "In retrospect it seems the principal decisions were taken in advance in Washington." The US's decision to ban 30,000 Baathists from power in post-war Iraq went "a step further than necessary". Sawers had advocated clearing out 5,000 Baathists. Sawers thought that neither this, nor the disbanding of the Iraqi army with its "bloated" officer class, were fundamental reasons for the growth of the insurgency against occupation.

- On Saturday December 12, 2009, Tony Blair dropped something of a bombshell by admitting that he would have favoured removing Saddam Hussein regardless of any arguments about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The admission will convince cynics of British and American policy that they were right all along to say this was always about regime change. It might also make those who laboured to produce the evidence suddenly seem rather irrelevant. The former British prime minister's statement goes beyond simply saying that he did believe at the time that Saddam had such weapons but feels now that the war was right in any case.

- On December 13, 2009, Tony Blair is facing strong criticism after he said he would have gone to war in Iraq even if he had known there were not any weapons of mass destruction. The former prime minister said it was the "notion" of Saddam as a threat to the region which tilted him in favour of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He added that he would have used different arguments to justify the war. Critics have said Mr Blair misled Parliament and "tailored his arguments to fit the circumstances". Hans Blix, who was in charge of the UN team searching Iraq for WMD, said he thought Mr Blair used WMD as a "convenient justification" for war.

- Former director of public prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald said on December 15, 2009, that the ex-PM "misled and cajoled" people into supporting the "deadly" invasion. Sir Ken's attack came after Mr Blair said he would have gone to war regardless of whether Saddam Hussein had WMDs. He added: "This was a foreign policy disgrace of epic proportions. Mr Blair's fundamental flaw was his sycophancy towards power. Washington turned his head and he couldn't resist the stage or the glamour that it gave him. Mr Blair will appear before the Iraq inquiry early next year.

- The UK will "move quickly" to enhance airport security after the "wake-up call" of the failed Detroit plane attack, the prime minister said on January 1, 2010. Gordon Brown said he had ordered a review of existing security measures. Full-body scanners would be among the new technologies considered.

- On January 2, 2010, former Prime Minister Sir John Major criticised Tony Blair's handling of the Iraq war and his presentation of the case for invasion in March 2003. Sir John said he had reluctantly backed the war because he believed what Mr Blair had said as prime minister. But now, he said, big questions had been raised by the evidence given to the Chilcott Inquiry into the war.

- British troops held up at their base in Basra Palace in the heart of Iraqi's southern city had been described as "sitting ducks" for Shia militia, the Chilcot inquiry heard January 6, 2010. The inquiry in London questioned top defence and military officials about three controversial events leading to the final withdrawal from Iraq. They were the decision to leave Basra Palace, secret talks with the Mahdi army, a prominent Shia militia, and the Charge of the Knights, a US-led operation with the Iraqi army, drawn up unbeknown to the British in 2008, which crushed most militia activity.

- On January 9, 2010, police have arrested three men on a plane at London's Heathrow Airport on suspicion of making a bomb threat. Armed officers boarded the Dubai-bound Emirates flight after verbal threats were made to air crew.

- Tony Blair's ex-spokesman Alastair Campbell said on January 12, 2010, that he "defends every single word" of the 2002 dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. He told the UK's Iraq war inquiry that parts could have been "clearer" but it did not "misrepresent" Iraq's threat. But he said Mr Blair told President Bush privately in 2002 the UK would back military action if necessary. Mr Campbell said the prime minister recognised the deep opposition to military action amongst much of the British public but believed there would be a "bigger day of reckoning" to come with Saddam if he was not confronted at the time.

- Almost 5,000 British soldiers and officers -or 20% of army infantry personnel- are unfit for frontline combat duties. Some are not fully deployable because of physical or mental injury or illness, or lack of fitness, others because of non-medical reasons. The data showed 19 battalions had fewer than 500 fully deployable soldiers. The MoD said most classed as medically non-deployable could still contribute.

- The Iraq Inquiry met behind closed doors on January 16, 2010 to hear evidence from the general who ran the British operations in the conflict. General Sir John Reith said he should be allowed to appear without the press and public present "for personal reasons". A full transcript of his evidence was published with five words blanked out, which the inquiry said was on "national security" grounds.

- Britain gave "no undertaking in blood to go to war in Iraq" in March 2002, Tony Blair's former chief of staff told the Iraq Inquiry on January 18, 2010. Jonathan Powell dismissed ex-diplomat Sir Christopher Meyer's claim that Mr Blair's stance had hardened after a private meeting with the US president. He said there had been an "assumption" Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, because Saddam had used them before. And he said they had considered that Mr Blair might lose his job over the war.

- Geoff Hoon said on January 19, 2010, the first he knew of the controversial 45-minute claim on Iraq was when he read it in the September 2002 dossier on its weapons. An expert told him it referred to battlefield weapons only and he did "not think much more of it". Mr Hoon insisted UK backing for the 2003 invasion was not inevitable and was settled only after MPs backed it.

- On January 21, 2010, Jack Straw said he had backed Tony Blair over his decision to go to war in Iraq and acknowledged that he effectively had a veto over British military action. He said: "I was also fully aware that my support for military action was critical. If I had refused that, the UK's participation in the military action would not, in practice, have been possible. There almost certainly would have been no majority either in cabinet or in the Commons." He added that he had made a choice to support Blair. "I have never backed away from it and I do not intend to do so and fully accept the responsibilities which flow from that. I believed at the time, and I still believe, that we made the best judgments we could have done in the circumstances."

- The attorney general Lord Goldsmith completely changed his view about the legality of the Iraq war over a two-month period, the Chilcot inquiry heard on January 26, 2010. Elizabeth Wilmshurst, former deputy legal adviser at the Foreign Office, revealed that Goldsmith initially sent a "provisional" view to Tony Blair in January 2003 that a second UN resolution would be required for the invasion to be legal. But by 7 March the position of Goldsmith, who gives evidence to the inquiry tomorrow, was that there was a reasonable case for arguing the war would be legal without a second resolution. Then by 17 March, just days before the war, he said there was no need for a second resolution.

- Lord Goldsmith has admitted he changed his legal view of the Iraq war but said it was "complete nonsense" to claim he did so because of political pressure. Until a month before the 2003 invasion, the ex-attorney general believed it was "safer" to get a fresh UN resolution. But he gave the "green light" after deciding force was justified by UN accords on Iraq dating back to 1991. He also said he was surprised the cabinet did not want to discuss his advice. Asked why he left it as late as 13 March to issue a definitive statement that war was lawful, he said that was when the military had sought a "yes or no" answer.

- On January 29, 2010, Tony Blair has said the Iraq war made the world a safer place and he has "no regrets" about removing Saddam Hussein. In a robust defence of his decision to back war, Mr Blair said Saddam was a "monster and I believe he threatened not just the region but the world." The former prime minister was barracked by a member of the public as he made his closing statement at the end of a six-hour grilling at the Iraq inquiry. He said Iraqis were now better off and he would take the same decisions again.

- On January 29, 2010, Appeal Court judges have overturned the conviction of a man branded a "wannabe suicide bomber" by prosecutors. Mohammed Atif Siddique, 24, a student from Alva, Clackmannanshire, was convicted of terrorism charges in 2007.

- Tony Blair's claims on January 29, 2010, that Iran now poses as serious a threat as Saddam Hussein's Iraq have been dismissed as a "piece of spin" by Sir Richard Dalton, the British ambassador to Tehran. Sir Richard Dalton was fiercely critical of Blair's testimony at the Iraq inquiry yesterday, in which the former Prime Minister compared Iran's nuclear proliferation to the perceived threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons program before the war.

- Gordon Brown was "marginalised" by Tony Blair in the build-up to the Iraq war, former International Development Secretary Clare Short said on Saturday January 30, 2010. The then chancellor neither opposed nor supported the invasion but was "preoccupied" by other concerns. Ms Short also described Mr Blair's evidence to the Iraq inquiry on Friday as "ludicrous". Ms Short quit the cabinet shortly after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

- Tony Blair's former communications chief gave an emotional defence of the ex-prime minister Sunday February 7, 2010, saying he had been subject to "vilification" over Britain's war with Iraq but was an "honourable man". He rejected long-standing allegations that Blair misled parliament when he claimed the Iraqi leader had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and accused the media of "settling your scores" in their coverage of the issue. Campbell become emotional and had to pause to compose himself at one point, saying: "I'm sorry if I do get upset about this but I was there alongside Tony, I know how that decision weighed on him, I know the care that we took."

- Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw gave some incorrect answers to the UK's Iraq war inquiry, former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said on Sunday February 7, 2010. Mr Blix said he was "puzzled" by some of the evidence that Mr Straw gave to the panel adding that Mr Straw had been incorrect to suggest, in 2002, that UN weapons inspectors were not being allowed access to certain sites.

- On February 8, 2010, Jack Straw hit back at claims he had wilfully ignored legal advice ahead of the Iraq war, insisting he had considered it with "great care" but had good reasons for taking another view. Straw said that the guidance he received from his legal adviser of the time, Sir Michael Wood, had been inconsistent. The legal advice he offered, frankly, was contradictory and I think I was entitled to raise that.

- On February 10, 2010 the foreign secretary has lost an Appeal Court bid to stop the disclosure of secret information relating to the alleged torture of a UK resident. Ethiopian-born Binyam Mohamed, 31, says UK authorities knew he was tortured at the behest of US authorities after his detention in Pakistan in 2002. Judges ruled that paragraphs which say his treatment was "cruel, inhuman and degrading" should be released.

- Hospitals in Afghanistan and the UK are under pressure from the large number of troops injured in Helmand province we were told on February 10, 2010. The Helmand field hospital was close to capacity.

- On February 12, 2010 the head of MI5 has denied officers withheld information over what it knew about the torture of a UK resident. Jonathan Evans defended the security service against claims it misled MPs over the US's treatment of Binyam Mohamed. The Court of Appeal earlier ruled that Mr Mohamed could learn what MI5 knew about his 2002 mistreatment while in secret detention in Pakistan.

- On February 26, 2010, MI5 officers have been accused by a senior judge of having a "dubious record" over the treatment of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed. Lord Neuberger said some officers had been less than frank about what they knew about Mr Mohamed's ill-treatment. His criticism was made public after an exceptionally unusual court decision to publish his draft legal opinion on MI5's respect for human rights.

- Gordon Brown told the Iraq inquiry on March 5, 2010, that the war had been "right" -and troops had all the equipment they needed. The PM also insisted he had not been kept in the dark by Tony Blair despite not being aware of some developments. His own intelligence briefings had convinced him that Iraq was a threat that "had to be dealt with". But the main issue for him was that Iraq was in breach of UN resolutions -and that "rogue states" could not be allowed to flout international law. If the international community could not act together over Iraq, Mr Brown said, he feared the "new world order we were trying to create would be put at risk".

- A British soldier who went absent without leave rather than returns to fight in Afghanistan was jailed Friday March 5, 2010, for nine months by a military court. Lance Corp. Joe Glenton had been convicted by a military judge at a court martial, Glenton, who completed a seven-month tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2006, became an outspoken critic of British military operations in the country during his absence, frequently appearing at anti-war rallies and on television.

- Gordon Brown visited troops in Afghanistan on Saturday March 6, 2010, just hours after former senior military figures accused him of being "disingenuous" in the evidence he gave to the Iraq Inquiry. He flew into Camp Bastion to thank some of the 4,000 British forces involved in Operation Moshtarak, last month's assault on Taliban strongholds in Helmand province which was deemed a "major success."

- On Saturday March 6, 2010, former heads of the armed forces have strongly challenged Gordon Brown's evidence to the Iraq war inquiry. The prime minister, who was chancellor when the war began, said the military had been given everything it asked for. But Lord Guthrie, ex-chief of the defence staff, said that armed forces had been denied a request for more helicopters. His successor, Lord Boyce, said that Mr Brown had been "disingenuous". No 10 rejected the criticisms. It also repeated his statement that no request for equipment had ever been turned down. But another former defence chief, General Sir Richard Dannatt, said that while the prime minister may have been "narrowly and precisely correct" on his evidence on military spending, he had not addressed the issue of "underlying underfunding" going back to 1997. Lord Guthrie, who held his post from 1997 to 2001, said the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had "received the bare minimum from the chancellor, who wanted to give the military as little as he could get away with".

- On March 10, 2010, the former head of MI5 has claimed US intelligence agencies "concealed" their mistreatment of terror suspects. Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller said she only discovered alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded after retiring in 2007. She also said the US had been "very keen to conceal from us what was happening".

- An Afghan court has sentenced a British security contractor to two years in prison after convicting him of paying a $25,000 bribe. The sentence, handed down Monday April 26, 2010, comes amid increasing Western pressure on President Hamid Karzai to crack down on rampant corruption.

- The alleged leader of an al-Qaeda plot to bomb targets in north-west England has won his appeal against deportation. A special immigration court said Abid Naseer was an al-Qaeda operative but could not be deported because he faced torture or death back home in Pakistan. Mr Naseer, 23, was one of 10 Pakistani men arrested last April as part of a massive counter-terrorism operation in Liverpool and Manchester. Student Ahmad Faraz Khan, also 23, won his appeal on similar grounds. The security services believed the men were planning to attack within days of their arrest, but neither was charged.

- Inquests into the deaths of 52 people killed in the 7/7 bombings will examine the alleged failings of MI5 in the run-up to the attacks, a coroner has ruled on May 21, 2010. Lady Justice Hallett told the Royal Courts of Justice it was still possible to investigate what security services knew before the 2005 London attacks. She also ruled the inquests of the four bombers would not be heard at the same time as those of the victims.

- The Iraq war inquiry questioned US diplomats Paul Bremer and Ryan Crocker among other officials during a visit to the United States we were told on Friday May 28, 2010. Members of the five-strong panel, which is investigating the March 2003 invasion and subsequent operations until Britain's pull-out last year, also met with the current French and Australian ambassadors in Washington. Bremer was administrator of Iraq in the first year after the invasion, while Crocker was US ambassador there from 2007 to 2009. The inquiry also questioned General David McKiernan, who led coalition forces during the invasion, as well as advisors to the US State Department and the National Security Council, and officials from the World Bank. Charles Duelfer and David Kay, who at one time both led the Iraq Survey Group, the fact-finding mission which searched fruitlessly for alleged weapons of mass destruction after the invasion, were also questioned.

- On June 10, 2010, we were told that thousands of people across the UK might have been stopped and searched illegally, figures released by the Home Office suggest. Powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act were used in "error" after the proper authorisations were not given. In one example, for April 2004, the Met Police wrongly stopped 840 people. Dozens of other examples from across the UK have been uncovered before rules were tightened in 2008.

- The UN refugee agency is investigating allegations that deported Iraqi asylum seekers were beaten by UK Border Agency staff to get them on and off the plane. It is believed 42 Iraqi men were flown back to Baghdad in a forced return. Sixteen are still being held at Baghdad airport where they arrived early on Thursday June 17, 2010. The UKBA declined to comment on the specific allegations, but said minimum force would only be used as a last resort. The deportation was carried out by the UKBA in conditions of complete secrecy, with no information of any kind being given out. The chief of security at Baghdad airport, Col Athir al-Musawi, told the BBC that 16 men were being detained while their identities and papers were verified. The other deportees were released after it was established that their papers were in order.

- More than 10 Iraqi asylum seekers deported from the UK more than a week ago are still in detention in Baghdad on June 27, 2010. The men were part of a group of more than 40 Iraqis forcibly removed on 16 June after their claims for political asylum were turned down. Some of the men claim they were beaten by UK officials during the flight.

- Thousands of mourners lined the streets of a Wootton Bassett Tuesday June 29, 2010, to pay their final respects to seven servicemen killed in Afghanistan, as their bodies were brought home. Families of the men wept as hearses draped with the Union Jack flag passed through Wootton Bassett, after being repatriated to a nearby airbase, RAF Lyneham. The sight of dead servicemen passing through the small town has become frequent as the British death toll in the Afghan conflict mounts. But seven bodies being brought back at the same time is rare and left many overcome with emotion.

- On June 30, 2010, the Supreme Court has ruled that British troops are not protected by human rights laws on the battlefield. The family of Pte Jason Smith, who died of heatstroke in Iraq in June 2003, had argued that troops should receive such protection in conflict overseas. Commanders said it was impractical to allow troops in combat zones to be protected by human rights law. The Supreme Court has now quashed previous rulings that the legislation should apply to soldiers at all times. The president of the Supreme Court, Lord Phillips, said service personnel fighting abroad would not necessarily be covered by human rights law.

- On July 4, 2010, an Afghan appeals court has acquitted a former British soldier, Bill Shaw, working for a security firm of a bribery conviction, dropping his two-year prison sentence. Shaw, who has been awarded an MBE, an official British honour, had admitted paying for the release of two impounded armoured cars but insisted he thought it was an official release payment rather than a bribe.

- Thirty five people have given evidence to the Iraq Inquiry behind closed doors we were told on July 8, 2010. They include two former heads of the Secret Intelligence Service MI6 - Sir Richard Dearlove and Sir John Scarlett. Former UK ambassador David Manning and UK special representative to Iraq Sir Jeremy Greenstock have given evidence in both public and private. When it was first announced by then-prime minister Gordon Brown in June 2009 he initially said it would be held behind closed doors for security reasons. But later, after widespread criticism, he said some sessions should be in public and it was up to the chairman, Sir John Chilcot.

- On July 14, 2010, we were told that General Sir David Richards is currently the head of the British Army and will become Britain's most senior military figure this October. He was previously the Nato commander in Kabul between 2006-7. People expect him to ensure sustaining Britain's commitment in Afghanistan remains the top defence priority, while also trying to better align the political and military aspects of the campaign.

- Iraqis who claim that hundreds of British soldiers were directly involved in widespread torture and abuse have won the first round in their legal battle to force the Government to open a public inquiry. Judges sitting in the High Court in London on July 16, 2010, ruled there was an arguable case that the alleged ill-treatment was systemic, and not just carried out at the whim of individual soldiers. The cases before the court include allegations of sexual abuse, mock executions, electric shocks, beatings and, in one case, murder. The Independent revealed the first allegation of water torture and evidence of collusion between British and American military units operating in southern Iraq.

- The former director general of Britain's domestic intelligence agency said Tuesday July 20, 2010 that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had greatly increased the terrorist threat to Britain and that intelligence available before the Iraq war had not been sufficient to justify the invasion of that country.

- On July 22, 2010, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has provoked controversy by describing the Iraq war as 'illegal' while standing in at the despatch box in parliament for the first time for Prime Minister David Cameron. It has led to renewed calls for former Prime Minister Tony Blair to stand trial for war crimes and concern that British troops involved in the 2003 invasion could also face prosecution. The government's initial response was to play down Clegg's call for former foreign secretary Jack Straw to "account for his role in the most disastrous decision of all: the illegal invasion of Iraq," by claiming he was speaking in a personal capacity even though he was deputising for the prime minister.

- The Foreign Office has declined to comment on claims by a former diplomat that it blocked key parts of his testimony to the Iraq Inquiry. Carne Ross, the UK's Iraq expert at the UN from 1997-2002, said on July 25, 2010, the FO withheld documents he requested, and warned him not to refer to a key memo. The FO said "we are not going to comment on what witnesses have said

- The man who led UN weapons inspectors in Iraq before the 2003 invasion is appearing before the Iraq war inquiry on July 26, 2010. Dr Hans Blix, who was head of the UN's Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) since its inception in 1999, is the first foreign national to give evidence in person to Sir John Chilcott's inquiry in London. Dr Blix was a key figure in the months before the war as his team sought to determine the extent of Saddam Hussein's weapons programme.

- Britain's former deputy prime minister, John Prescott, has told the Iraq inquiry he was nervous about the intelligence being relied on before the invasion in 2003. Lord Prescott was Tony Blair's loyal deputy for a decade, and party to 23 secret war cabinet meetings. He told the Chilcot inquiry on July 30, 2010, he had significant doubts about 2002 intelligence reports upon which the case for war was based.

- On August 13, 2010, a group of U.K. doctors and lawyers called for a full inquest into the death of David Kelly, the government scientist who was the source of a story saying the official dossier justifying the Iraq war had been "sexed up." Kelly, a former weapons inspector working for the defence ministry, was found dead in a wood near his home in southern England in 2003 after he was revealed as the origin of a BBC report about the way information about Iraqi arms had been used to make the case for the U.S.-led invasion that toppled President Saddam Hussein. The group, including two former coroners and an intensive care specialist, said in a letter published by the Times of London newspaper today that, based on the evidence currently in the public domain, it was "extremely unlikely" that Kelly had bled to death after slitting his wrist. An inquest into Kelly's death was suspended by then Lord Chancellor Charles Falconer, pending a judicial inquiry by Lord Hutton, who concluded that the "principal" cause of Kelly's death was self-inflicted wounds. Hutton also noted that Kelly had taken an "excess amount" of coproxamol tablets and suffered from coronary artery disease, both of which probably contributed to his death. The inquest was never reopened.

- Five Iraqis accused of murdering six Royal Military Police officers in 2003 have had their charges dropped on August 15, 2010. Only two men will now stand trial in Iraq, possibly later this year, after an Iraqi judge ruled that the five in question had no case to answer. Charges against an eighth suspect were dropped earlier this year. The military police officers -or Red Caps- were killed by a mob in the town of Majar al-Kabir in southern Iraq.

- The official inquiry into the Iraq war being held in London has been accused on August 27, 2010, of ignoring the deaths of the estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilians who have been killed since the 2003 invasion. Iraq Body Count (IBC) has recorded up to 106,000 civilian deaths since the allied invasion. The organisation said the equivalent of an Iraq war inquest was needed because the Chilcot inquiry set up by the former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown had failed to address the issue. For the past 12 months, the IBC, which is based in Britain, has been pressing the inquiry chairman to look into civilian casualties. In its view, the inquiry has been fixated upon the interplay between military and political actors in the UK and the US.

- Colonel Richard Kemp said on august 28, 2010 that the Islamist insurgents have a "very, very extensive network of intelligence" and suggested that they often have more knowledge of the movements of visiting foreign dignities than officials realise. The former commander in Afghanistan was speaking after the Daily Telegraph reported that Downing Street had been urged to review its security protocols after the Taliban tried to bring down David Cameron's helicopter during a visit to the region in June. He added that the Taliban have "sources in many places", including within the Afghan security forces and "even in military bases"

- Former British Premier Tony Blair ignored warnings that there was no concrete evidence of Baghdad possessing weapons of mass destruction to support UK going to war in Iraq, an ex-senior intelligence official said on August 29, 2010. Dr Brian Jones was head of the UK Defence Intelligence Staff's nuclear, biological and chemical branch in 2002 when the infamous "45 minutes" dossier was published. His account of events which led to what he calls "the disastrous decision" to go to war is at odds with Blair's version. Dr Jones, who regularly met UN weapons inspector David Kelly, described the Whitehall meetings held to discuss the dossier.

- Britain released secret medical files on Friday October 22, 2010, that poured cold water on lingering conspiracy theories that former U.N. Iraq weapons expert David Kelly may have been murdered. Kelly, 59, was found dead in 2003 after being named as the source of a BBC report which accused then-Prime Minister Tony Blair's government of exaggerating the military threat posed by Iraq's Saddam Hussein to help build the case for war. His death caused one of the biggest controversies of Blair's time in office and led to fevered speculation about the circumstances surrounding his loss of life. Judge Lord Hutton led an independent inquiry into the death and concluded in 2004 that the scientist slit his left wrist after taking painkillers in countryside near his home. Critics called the ruling a whitewash and medical experts have since questioned whether Kelly's injuries were severe enough for him to bleed to death.

- Tony Blair is to be summoned back to the official inquiry into the Iraq invasion in light of damaging and conflicting evidences revealed since he appeared as a witness in January. Members of the Chilcot inquiry are concerned about evidence in documents released in July showing that he was warned by his government's chief law officer that an invasion of Iraq would be illegal the day before he privately assured George Bush he would support US-led military action. Documents released in July showed that Goldsmith repeatedly warned the prime minister of the potential consequences of invading Iraq without fresh UN authority. For instance in a note dated 30 January 2003, Goldsmith said: "In view of your meeting with President Bush on Friday, I thought you might wish to know where I stand on the question of whether a further decision of the [UN] security council is legally required in order to authorise the use of force against Iraq." Moreover he "remained of the view that the correct legal interpretation of resolution 1441 [the last Security Council decision on Iraq] is that it does not authorise the use of force without a further determination by the Security Council". He concluded: "My view remains that a further [UN] decision is required." On 31 January 2003 the US president told Blair that military action would be taken with or without a second security council resolution and the bombing would begin in mid-March 2003. The note records Blair's reaction: "The prime minister said he was solidly with the president." By 7 March, after a trip to Washington, Goldsmith told Blair that a new UN resolution might after all not be needed, although going to war without one would risk Britain being indicted before an international court. Ten days later, on 17 March 2003, Goldsmith published a short note saying an invasion would be lawful.

- The High Court in London Friday November 5, 2010, started to hear an appeal, challenging the British government's refusal to order a single inquiry into the alleged abuse and torture of over 140 Iraqi civilians by UK troops.

- On December 8, 2010, we were told that former Prime Minister Tony Blair is to be recalled to give evidence a second time to the Iraq Inquiry. He is one of a number of key figures, including former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, asked to appear before the Chilcot committee again. In January, Mr Blair defended his decision to take the country to war, saying he had no regrets about it and that Saddam Hussein was a "monster". The inquiry said it wanted "more detail" in some key areas.

- The excitement over the recall of Tony Blair to give evidence to the Chilcot inquiry for a second time centres on the question of whether he acted honestly or legally in getting us into the war in the first place. But the second and separate issue concerning the Chilcot inquiry is the government's handling of our subsequent occupation of south-eastern Iraq between 2003 and 2008. Even today most people do not realise just how grotesquely mishandled was our occupation, beginning with Mr Blair's post-invasion decision to reduce our forces from 42,000 to an absurdly inadequate 9,000. Our misjudgement of the strength of the resistance forces around Basra led by Moqtada al-Sadr led to five years of humiliating reverses and our forced retreat from Basra in 2007, culminating in the ultimate humiliation in 2008 of our forces being ordered by Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to leave his country. The Ministry of Defence's only real success was the extent to which it managed to conceal so much of this terrible story from the British people.

- On January 18, 2011, the head of the UK civil service has refused to allow the official inquiry into the Iraq War to publish notes sent by Tony Blair to former US president George Bush. He denied requests for exchanges between the former prime minister and Mr Bush about Iraq to be declassified and released. Inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot said: "The inquiry is disappointed that the Cabinet Secretary was not willing to accede to its request.

- On January 21, 2011, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told an inquiry into the Iraq war that he disregarded concerns from the government's top legal advisors about the legality of the 2003 U.S. led invasion, addressing a still-raging controversy in the U.K. Mr. Blair said that Peter Goldsmith, the country's former attorney general, had warned him that attacking Iraq may be illegal without further backing from the United Nations. But the former Labour prime minister said that he believed the advice was "provisional" and once Lord Goldsmith was fully "abreast" of the situation he would change his mind. In the U.K., there has for many years been a debate about whether Mr. Blair ignored legal advice that said the Iraq war was illegal under international and domestic law.

- Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair appeared Friday January 21, 2011, for a second time before a London inquiry into the Iraq war, expressing remorse over the loss of life but not the "strong commitment" he gave to disarming Saddam Hussein. Blair said he assured former U.S. President George W. Bush in the months leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq that "you can count on us."

- A British security contractor accused of murdering two colleagues in Iraq has given his first courtroom account of the drunken night that has left him facing a possible death sentence. Daniel Fitzsimons, a former paratrooper, told a criminal court in Baghdad on January 23, 2011, that he was not guilty of murdering Briton Paul McGuigan and Australian Darren Hoare in August 2009, but was guilty of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility, after he responded to taunts from both men. Fitzsimons claims he was watching a DVD with a colleague from his army days, Kevin Milson, when McGuigan joined them.

- Former Prime Minister Tony Blair's sister-in-law Lauren Booth, a rights campaigner and Muslim convert, said on Wednesday January 26, 2011, that he should be tried for war crimes over the invasion of Iraq. Booth is the half-sister of Blair's barrister wife Cherie. She said the conflict in Iraq was "an offence, as it was organised well in advance between Blair and the United States leadership. Booth has been a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, and a supporter of the Palestinian cause, and in 2008 travelled with other activists to Gaza by ship to protest against Israel's blockade of the territory.

- Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair did not trust his own cabinet and was "reluctant" to hold discussions with it on a proposal to go to war against Iraq fearing that details would be leaked, the UK's top civil servant, former Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, told the Chilcot Inquiry. Though Blair has insisted that his cabinet was briefed throughout about decisions related to the Iraq war, Sir Gus O'Donnell, claimed the Prime Minister found the cabinet an unsafe place to hold discussions on key issues. He also claimed that Blair held fewer cabinet meetings because he almost always had a different opinion about taking decisions collectively.

- George W. Bush and Tony Blair did not have a "sinister" agenda to invade Iraq in 2003, former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told a London inquiry into the war on the last day of its public hearings on Wednesday February 2, 2011. Straw, Foreign Secretary from 2001 until 2006, rejected accusations by critics of the conflict that military action had always been the long-held intention of the former U.S. president and ex-prime minister. Straw also confirmed he had gone to see Blair just over a week before the invasion to say Britain could pull back from military action. He said while he had come "at the issue from a different perspective" from Blair, he fully backed the decision for war.

- A Ghurkha soldier who single-handedly fought off up to 30 insurgents in Afghanistan, even using his gun tripod when he ran out of bullets, has been rewarded for bravery. Sergeant Dipprasad Pun, 31, of the Royal Gurkha Rifles, fired 400 rounds, launched 17 grenades and detonated a mine to thwart the assault by Taliban fighters at a British checkpoint near Babaji in Helmand province last year. The only weapon he did not use was the traditional curved Kukri knife carried by the Nepalese soldiers, because he did not have it with him. Pun saved the lives of three colleagues who were at the checkpoint and was presented with the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for his outstanding bravery at a ceremony in London on Thursday March 24, 2011. The medal is a level below the prestigious Victoria Cross, Britain's top award for gallantry.

- On May 12, 2011, a top military intelligence official has said the discredited dossier on Iraq's weapons programme was drawn up "to make the case for war", flatly contradicting persistent claims to the contrary by the Blair government, and in particular by Alastair Campbell, the former prime minister's chief spin doctor. In hitherto secret evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Major General Michael Laurie said: "We knew at the time that the purpose of the dossier was precisely to make a case for war, rather than setting out the available intelligence, and that to make the best out of sparse and inconclusive intelligence the wording was developed with care." His evidence is devastating, as it is the first time such a senior intelligence officer has directly contradicted the then government's claims about the dossier -and, perhaps more significantly, what Tony Blair and Campbell said when it was released seven months before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

- Alastair Campbell has hit back at a former defence intelligence official who claimed that the controversial Downing Street dossier on Iraq's banned weapons programme was designed to "make the case for war". On May 20, 2011, the former Downing Street director of communications dismissed the claims by Major General Michael Laurie in a letter to Sir John Chilcot, the chairman of the Iraq inquiry. Campbell intervened after Laurie, who was director general in the Defence Intelligence Staff, claimed in secret evidence to the Iraq inquiry that the purpose of the arms dossier in September 2002 was "precisely to make a case for war, rather than setting out the available intelligence.

- Britain was withdrawing all its troops Sunday May 22, 2011, from Iraq, ending a role that began with the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein. The announcement that Britain was withdrawing its 170 troops came days earlier by Liam Fox, the defence secretary, who said the troops had completed their mission to train Iraqi naval forces. The announcement effectively ended Britain's role in Iraq, a role that was widely unpopular in the United Kingdom. About 179 British troops were killed during operations in Iraq.

- On Sunday May 22, 2011he former British prime minister's communications chief Alastair Campbell has challenged comments at Chilcot Inquiry that London's Iraq war dossier was designed to "make the case for war". Campbell said in a letter to the chairman of the Iraq War Inquiry Sir John Chilcot that the remarks made by former defence intelligence official Major General Michael Laurie were not true. Laurie, who was director general in the Defence Intelligence Staff when former Prime Minister Tony Blair decided to join the Iraq war, presented evidence to the inquirers showing the dossier compiled in September 2002 on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was "precisely to make a case for war, rather than setting out the available intelligence". Campbell however dismissed his evidence in the letter saying Laurie has not been involved in the process of the dossier's compilation and the Downing Street did not tell intelligence officials that the document was created to "make the case for war". Laurie's last week evidence led to fresh speculations that Andrew Gilligan's controversial BBC Today program was right to conclude London's false claims in the dossier that Iraq could use its WMD in a matter of 45 minutes at any time were "probably" intentionally inserted in the document.

- Britain will not hold an inquest into the death of weapons inspector David Kelly, one of the key incidents surrounding London's part in the invasion of Iraq, the attorney general ruled Thursday June 9, 2011. Kelly's death in July 2003 plunged then-prime minister Tony Blair into crisis. Kelly was found dead in woods near his home in Oxfordshire, southern England, after he was exposed as the source for a BBC story that alleged Blair's government had "sexed up" intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before the invasion. Kelly was the most experienced British expert involved in United Nations inspections in Iraq intended to prevent Saddam Hussein from acquiring WMD. An inquest was initially opened into Kelly's death, but it was suspended before the start of an inquiry. The 2004 probe, carried out by Brian Hutton, a former head of the Northern Irish judiciary, concluded that Kelly had committed suicide. The then lord chancellor Charles Falconer, head of the English judiciary, declared himself satisfied with the inquiry and the inquest was never completed.

- Alastair Campbell was "somewhat of an unguided missile" during talks about intelligence before the Iraq war, a senior MI6 officer said on July 14, 2011. Tony Blair's former spokesman tended to have "rushes of blood to the head", previously secret evidence released by the Iraq inquiry suggests. The officer said the pre-war atmosphere had been "febrile" and MI6 had made mistakes. The UK invaded Iraq in March 2003. The inquiry is due to end later this year. Chaired by Sir John Chilcot, it is examining events between 2001 and 2009, including the decision to go to war in Iraq, post-invasion planning, what lessons were learned and whether troops were properly equipped.

- Scotland Yard ran up a bill of almost £500,000 protecting Tony Blair when he gave evidence at the Iraq War inquiry we were told on Monday July 25, 2011. Hundreds of officers were drafted in to form a ring of steel around the former prime minister as he faced a furious back-lash from anti-war protesters. The security operation left taxpayers with a bill for £487,000 after police spent £273,000 policing his first visit in January 2010 and £214,000 when he returned a year later. The vast majority of the bill, some £365,000, was made up in wages of officers who were taken away from their ordinary frontline duties. Other costs included overtime and other additional costs such as transport, helicopter support, catering, barriers and specialist equipment. The Met said 657 police officer shifts and 28 staff shifts were worked when Blair first testified at the Chilcott Inquiry on January 29, 2010. Scores of noisy anti-war protesters gathered outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, a stone's throw from the Houses of Parliament. The second hearing, on January 21 this year, required a smaller police response as only a smaller number of activists turned out. Mr Blair was heckled at both evidence sessions by those watching him in the hearing room, including families of British troops killed in Iraq.

- Tony Blair is likely to be criticised heavily by the official inquiry into the Iraq war, which is expected to focus on his failure to consult the cabinet fully in the run-up to the 2003 invasion. Sir John Chilcot, the former permanent secretary at the Northern Ireland Office who is chairing the inquiry, has identified a series of concerns. These include:
o Failing to keep cabinet ministers fully informed of Blair's plans in the run-up to the invasion in March 2003. The committee is understood to have been impressed by the criticism voiced by Lord Butler of Brockwell, the former cabinet secretary, that Blair ran a sofa government.
o Failing to make proper preparations for the post-war reconstruction of Iraq.
o Failing to present intelligence in a proper way. In his inquiry into the use of intelligence, published in July 2004, Butler said the usual MI6 caveats were stripped out of the famous Downing Street arms dossier of September 2002.
o Failing to be open with ministers about understandings Blair reached with George Bush in the year running up to the invasion.

- Two people arrested by British armed forces in mid-July in Afghanistan have been freed from detention in Kandahar on 29 July. The pair, a man and a woman, are both reported to be British passport holders with dual nationalities. They were detained in a joint operation by local forces and UK troops. Reports at the time said the two had been picked up in the city of Herat and were believed to have gone to Afghanistan from the UK.

- Iraq posed no threat to the UK when then prime minister Tony Blair took Britain to war in 2003, former MI5 boss Baroness Manningham-Buller said on Monday August 29, 2011. she said MI5 advised war was likely to increase the domestic threat and was a "distraction" from the pursuit of al-Qaeda. But she added it was "for others to decide" whether the war was a mistake. She also said she "assumed" there would be another terrorist attack on Britain.

- An Iraqi man beaten and killed while in the custody of U.K. troops was the victim of "an appalling episode of serious gratuitous violence" and a serious breach of discipline, an investigation found Thursday September 8, 2011. Baha Mousa, 26 years old, was working at a hotel in Basra that was raided by soldiers looking for weapons in September 2003. He was taken to a British base where he sustained 93 injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose. An autopsy said he died of asphyxia, caused by a stress position that soldiers forced him to maintain. William Gage, who chaired the inquiry into the military's abuse of Iraqi prisoners and Mr. Mousa's death, said British soldiers bore a heavy responsibility for the tragedy. Mr. Gage called the use of certain interrogation techniques -such as hooding prisoners- unacceptable, and condemned a culture in which soldiers failed to report abuses. The report also criticized a "corporate failure" at the Ministry of Defence in allowing interrogation techniques that had been banned by the U.K. in 1972 -such as hooding and forcing prisoners to stand in uncomfortable positions- to be used by soldiers in Iraq. Mr. Gage condemned the ministry for losing track of its own doctrine on the techniques and failing to communicate and train soldiers on what interrogation tactics were banned. Still, the report stopped short of finding systematic and widespread abuses, saying the incidents were a stain on the army's reputation but "did not amount to an entrenched culture of violence." Britain's defence ministry has apologized for the mistreatment of Mr. Mousa and nine other Iraqis and paid a £3 million ($4.8 million) settlement. Six soldiers were cleared of wrongdoing at a court martial in 2007. A seventh pleaded guilty to inhumanely treating Iraqi civilians and served a year in jail. Cpl. Donald Payne, whose guilty plea made him Britain's first convicted war criminal, told the inquiry that some of his fellow soldiers frequently beat Iraqi detainees and said he had played down some of the abuses allegedly committed by his unit for fear it would harm his regiment's reputation. Mr. Gage described Cpl. Payne as a "violent bully" who inflicted a "dreadful catalogue of unjustified and brutal violence" on Mr. Mousa and the other detainees while encouraging other, more junior soldiers to do the same. The inquiry condemned the "lack of moral courage to report abuse" and a loss of discipline within the battalion, saying several officers must have been aware of the abuse. Mr. Gage said he accepted that the battalion's commanding officer wasn't aware of beatings carried out by his men in a detention centre but said he "ought to have known what was going on." The public inquiry examined Mr. Mousa's death and whether troops used banned techniques during interrogations.

- Three men who recruited vulnerable men to fight British soldiers in Afghanistan to fight a holy war have been jailed on Friday September 9, 2011, after they were convicted of offences following an anti-terror trial. Munir Farooqi, 54, Israr Malik, 23, and Matthew Newton, 29, were exposed after undercover police officers infiltrated faith stalls in Manchester and found they were trying to groom vulnerable men to travel to training camps and battlefields abroad, where they would "fight, kill and die" in a jihad against coalition forces. Farooqi was given four life sentences and told he must serve a minimum of nine years before he can be considered for parole. He had been convicted of preparing for acts of terrorism, three counts of soliciting to murder and one count of dissemination of terrorist publications, after a four-month trial. Passing sentence, Mr Justice Richard Henriques said: "You are in my judgment a very dangerous man, an extremist, a fundamentalist with a determination to fight abroad." Two undercover officers spent more than a year infiltrating the group and gaining the trust of Farooqi, who had been previously jailed in Afghanistan after fighting alongside the Taliban in 2001.

- On Monday September 12, 2011 a lawyer for the family of Baha Mousa, killed after being detained by a British military unit in Iraq, has called for the soldiers and officers involved to face prosecution. Mr Mousa died in 2003 after what an inquiry last week described as an "appalling episode of serious gratuitous violence". Justice for Baha Mousa and his family obviously requires that the large number of soldiers and others in command who are responsible for Baha Mousa's death are held criminally responsible.

- The official inquiry into the UK's role in the build-up to the Iraq war might not issue its report until next summer at the earliest, more than a year after many expected it to be made public, we were told on Sunday October 16, 2011. A source close to the inquiry, chaired by Sir John Chilcot, suggested that its findings are unlikely to be disclosed until June.

- A small town that honoured British soldiers killed in Afghanistan as their bodies were returned home received a royal title Sunday October 16, 2011, for its compassion, the first such honour granted to a town in over 100 years. Princess Anne delivered the Letters Patent -official documents from her mother Queen Elizabeth II- to the town of Wootton Bassett, giving it official permission to change its name to Royal Wootton Bassett. The bodies of soldiers killed in Afghanistan used to be repatriated to the RAF Lyneham airbase near Wootton Bassett and driven through town to a coroners office. Each time a cortege passed, residents shut the doors of their businesses and lined the sidewalks to salute the procession. Veterans and the families of the dead soldiers came to the town to take part in the ceremony, which began as an informal show of support for those killed and grew into a tradition that was broadcast around the country.

-The publication of Iraq Inquiry report will be delayed for at least six months due in part to a dispute over the release of secret documents. The Chilcot inquiry had hoped to release its report into the run-up to the 2003 invasion and its aftermath before the end of the year 2011. But it now says this will not happen until next summer at the earliest.

- Two wanted Al-Qaeda leaders killed by U.S. drone attacks are believed to have travelled from Britain to launch terrorist attacks against the West. Aslam Awan joined an Islamic terror cell then went to Afghanistan to fight coalition forces. Awan rose to become a senior figure in Al Qaeda's leadership, planning attacks on the West, but was killed in Pakistan's inaccessible border area by a missile launched from an unmanned U.S. drone on January 21, 2012.

- Extracts of a phone conversation between Tony Blair and George Bush a few days before the invasion of Iraq must be disclosed, a tribunal has ruled. The Foreign Office lost an appeal against an order by the information commissioner, Christopher Graham, to disclose records of the conversation between the two leaders on 12 March 2003. Graham's order was made in response to a freedom of information request by Stephen Plowden, a private individual who demanded disclosure of the entire record of the conversation. Upholding that ruling on Monday May 21, 2012, Judge John Angel, president of the information tribunal, said Foreign Office witnesses had downplayed the importance of a decision to go to war, a view the tribunal found "difficult to accept".

- British leaders have no choice but to court powerful media barons such as Rupert Murdoch or risk savage press attacks which are "full on, full frontal, day in, day out," former Prime Minister Tony Blair told an inquiry on Monday May 28, 2012. Interrupted by a heckler who accused him of being a war criminal for supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Blair paused briefly before continuing calmly to justify his ties to Murdoch with whom he developed a close friendship. An unwillingness to take on the press in Britain has been cited by many as the reason a culture of illegality and phone hacking came about at Murdoch's tabloids, but Blair told the inquiry into media standards that he had had little choice. He could either risk being torn apart by what he once described as the "feral beasts" of the media, or use them to get his policies implemented. He never agreed a deal with Murdoch, he said, and only became godfather to his daughter after he left office. Calling the mogul three times in the days before the invasion of Iraq was also not particularly odd, he added.

- Archbishop Desmond Tutu has pulled out of an international summit because he doesn't want to share a platform with the "morally indefensible" Tony Blair we were told Tuesday August 28, 2012. The retired archbishop, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his campaigning against apartheid, said that he had withdrawn from the event because he believed the former Prime Minister had supported the invasion of Iraq "on the basis of unproven allegations of the existence of weapons of mass destruction."

- Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu called Sunday September 2, 2012, for Tony Blair and George Bush to face prosecution at the International Criminal Court for their role in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He thinks that that the ex-leaders of Britain and the United States should be made to "answer for their actions" as the Iraq war "has destabilized and polarized the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history," wrote Tutu.

- Prince Harry arrived in Afghanistan on Friday September 7, 2012, on a four-month military deployment in his role as an Apache helicopter pilot. Harry, the grandson of Queen Elizabeth II and third in line to the British throne, is a captain in Britain's Army Air Corps. He will be stationed at dusty Camp Bastion in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province with the 100-strong 662 Squadron, 3 Regiment Army Air Corps.

- Hours after a British soldier in Afghanistan told medics she was suffering from stomach pains, the Royal Artillery gunner unexpectedly gave birth to a boy -the first child ever born to a member of Britain’s armed forces in combat. On Thursday September 20, 2012, the soldier told authorities she had not been aware she was pregnant and only consulted doctors on the day that she went into labour.

- A British man charged with kidnapping two Western journalists in Syria made his first court appearance Wednesday October 17, 2012, without entering a plea. Shajul Islam, a trainee doctor who was arrested last week on suspicion of terror offences after arriving in London on a flight from Egypt. Islam is accused of working with others to abduct two photographers, Briton John Cantlie and his Dutch colleague Jeroen Oerlemans, between July 17 and July 26 in Syria. Oerlemans was shot twice during a failed attempt to escape from his captors. Cantlie, who had worked for the Sunday Times newspaper, has said that none of his captors were Syrians and that several spoke with a British accent. Islam, from east London, is accused of being part of the jihadi group that kidnapped the journalists. He was kept in custody and is scheduled to have his next court hearing on Nov. 2. The woman was released without facing charges Tuesday after seven days of questioning. They were originally held on suspicion of travelling to Syria to support terror-related offences, raising concerns about Britons voyaging to Syria to take part in the fighting there.

- The families of several British soldiers who were killed in Iraq can sue their government for negligence, a court ruled Friday October 19, 2012. The families accuse the British government of failing to provide armoured vehicles or equipment that could have saved their loved ones’ lives. The High Court backed the families last year, but the Ministry of Defence appealed. On Friday the Court of Appeal agreed with the previous ruling that the families can sue the government for damages on negligence grounds.

- Allegations that British soldiers killed 20 unarmed civilians and abused others detained after a battle with Shia insurgents north of Basra in 2004 –the most serious allegations made against British soldiers in Iraq– are the subject of a public inquiry that opens on Monday March 4, 2013. The al-Sweady inquiry –named after the family of Hamid, an alleged victim aged 19– was forced on the Ministry of Defence in 2009 after high court judges accused it of "lamentable" behaviour and "serious breaches" of its duty of candour. Nine Iraqis say they were tortured after being taken to a detention centre at Shaibah base near Basra and held there for four months. They say they were taken, along with the 20 murdered Iraqis, to a British base, Camp Abu Naji, after a fierce fire fight in what became known as the battle of Danny Boy, a British military checkpoint near Majar al-Kabir, on 14 May 2004. The soldiers and MoD strongly reject the allegations. The Iraqi families and their lawyers accuse the troops of meting out "truly shocking" treatment to civilians. Interrogations by British military personnel involved "young men of 18, 19, and 20, some seriously injured with gunshot wounds, being stripped naked, forced to stand, not given appropriate medical treatment, and threatened with violence whilst still under the shock of capture in the middle of the night", Patrick Connor QC, counsel for the Iraqis, told a pre-inquiry hearing last year.

- On Sunday April 7, 2013 hitherto unseen evidence given to the Chilcot Inquiry by British intelligence has revealed that former Prime Minister Tony Blair was told that Iraq had, at most, only a trivial amount of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that Libya was in this respect a far greater threat. Intelligence officers have disclosed that just the day before Mr Blair went to visit president George Bush in April 2002, he appeared to accept this but returned a "changed man" and subsequently ordered the production of dossiers to "find the intelligence" that he wanted to use to justify going to war. This and other secret evidence (given in camera) to the inquiry will be used as the basis for severe criticism of the former prime minister when the Chilcot report is published.

- Lawyers for three Afghan interpreters who worked for British forces are starting legal action to try to win them the right to settle in the UK. They have issued a High Court claim for a judicial review of the government's decision not to treat them in the same way as interpreters in Iraq. The Iraqis were given the right to resettle in the UK after the war. Many of the 500 or so interpreters employed by the Ministry of Defence in Afghanistan say they have received serious threats to their lives, while some have already fled to the UK to claim asylum.

- Around 600 interpreters who served alongside British soldiers in Afghanistan are to be offered visas to live in the UK. But limits attached to the offer have drawn fire from human rights activists and even from Prime Minister David Cameron's own party. The interpreters, who are employed by the Ministry of Defence, will be allowed to choose between a free five-year training program in Afghanistan or the right to live in Britain for five years, with the option to apply for permanent asylum afterwards. The residence offer, however, only applies to those who have been working for British forces since the start of this year.

- A British soldier was brutally killed by knife-wielding assailants on a London street on Wednesday May 22, 2013. He was a father who served in Afghanistan as a machine-gunner. Lee Rigby, nicknamed "Riggers," was a 25-year-old member of the second battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Mr. Rigby's official military rank was "Drummer" because he played in the drum corps during ceremonial events, including the annual Beating the Retreat, a pageant of military music that takes place near Buckingham Palace. The killing of drummer Lee Rigby near London’s Woolwich army barracks was a horrific act. Rigby was first run down by two men in a car, who then set about him with knives and a cleaver. One of the men who carried out the killing was identified as Michael Adebolajo, a 28-year-old British citizen of Nigerian descent. The other has only been identified as a naturalized Nigerian. Both were shot by police and are in hospital, one in a critical condition. For reasons yet to be explained, it reportedly took up to 20 minutes for police to arrive on the scene. In that time Adebolajo spoke to several passers-by and was filmed by one making an extensive statement confirming that the attack was motivated by anger at the actions of British imperialism in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

- British forces in Afghanistan may begin handing over prisoners to the Afghan judicial system in the coming weeks we were told on Wednesday May 29, 2013. Around 90 prisoners had been held at Camp Bastion for up to a year because Britain was concerned that they might be mistreated in Afghan custody.

- A British man has been killed in Syria, the Foreign Office has confirmed on Friday May 31, 2013. The man had a British passport stating he was from London but could not verify its authenticity. He was Muslim and might have been working with Syrian rebels. He died along with another man and a US woman. His family has been informed.

- Britain has so far spent £37 billion on the conflict in Afghanistan, with each taxpaying household likely to pay more than £2,000 to fund the increasingly bloody campaign, reveals a new book. The book's author Frank Ledwidge said that since 2006, on a conservative estimate, the UK had paid a cost £15m a day to maintain its military presence in southern Helmand province. The writer of Investment in Blood estimates a sum of £25,000 will have been spent for every one of Helmand's 1.5 million inhabitants, more than most of them will earn in a lifetime. By 2020, Britain will have spent at least £40bn on its Afghan campaign, enough to recruit over 5,000 police officers or nurses and pay for them throughout their careers. It could fund free tuition for all students in British higher education for 10 years." Ledwidge called the campaign in Afghanistan Britain's last imperial war. British troops in Helmand had killed at least 500 non-combatants.

- Families of British soldiers killed in Iraq can pursue damages against the government, the Supreme Court has ruled On Wednesday June 19, 2013. Legal action was brought by relatives of three men killed by roadside bombs while in Snatch Land Rovers and another killed while in a Challenger tank. The judges ruled the families could make damages claims under human rights legislation and sue for negligence. At least 37 UK soldiers have died in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan while travelling in the lightly armoured Snatch Land Rover; its vulnerability has led some soldiers to call it the "mobile coffin".

- A total of 50 serving and veteran British soldiers committed suicide last year, more than were killed fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan we were told on Sunday July 14, 2013. Seven serving soldiers killed themselves in 2012 and a further 14 died in suspected suicides, although inquests have not yet been held. At least 29 veterans also took their lives last year. There are no official figures. A total of 40 British soldiers died in action in Afghanistan in the same period, while serving as part of a decade-long British deployment that reached 9,500 troops at its peak. Relatives of those who killed themselves told the BBC the military should do more to tackle post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and treat it like a physical injury. One soldier who committed suicide, Dan Collins, had twice survived being shot in Helmand, was blown off his feet by a roadside bomb and then witnessed a close friend killed in front of him. He was diagnosed with PTSD and given treatment, but after 10 months the army said he had recovered. He was later released back home and on New Year's Eve 2011, he hanged himself. ---

The UK's terror threat level has been raised from "substantial" to "severe" in response to conflicts in Iraq and Syria we were told Friday August 29, 2014. The new alert level rates the risk of an attack on the UK "highly likely", although there was no evidence to suggest one was "imminent". It is the second highest of five possible UK threat levels.

British lawmakers voted Friday September 26, 2014, to join the U.S.-led coalition and launch airstrikes on Islamic State group militants as early as this weekend in northern Iraq, but the motion did not endorse airstrikes in Syria. Prime Minister David Cameron described the moves as critical to national security, arguing that facing down terrorists has become a matter of urgency.

An Iranian-British woman has gone on hunger strike in prison in Tehran to protest against her arrest for trying to watch a men’s volleyball game we were told on Sunday October 5, 2014. Ghoncheh Ghavami’s incarceration has angered Iranian women who say they are still waiting for the greater freedom promised by Hassan Rouhani when he was elected president last year. Ghavami, 25, was arrested on 20 June outside Tehran’s Azadi Stadium, where she was taking part in a demonstration demanding that women be allowed inside to watch Iran playing Italy in an international league match. Iranian women in the Islamic Republic are banned from watching certain male sports events such as football and volleyball. Ghavami was released soon after, but then re-arrested days later when she was called back to reclaim items that had been confiscated when she was first detained. The human rights group Amnesty International says she has been held at the Evin prison, which has a reputation for brutality, and has spent time in solitary confinement. Kalame said she had been on hunger strike for five days. ---

On Thursday October 16, 2014, we were told that up to 30 British jihadists are now believed to have died fighting alongside Isil and other terror groups in Syria. The rising death toll is a sign that young British Muslims are still being sucked in by the warped ideology of Isil and are heading to the war-torn country in growing numbers.

On Sunday October 26, 2014, the last UK base in Afghanistan has been handed over to the control of Afghan security forces, ending British combat operations in the country.  The union flag was lowered at Camp Bastion, while Camp Leatherneck -the adjoining US base- was also handed over to Afghan control. Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain would never forget those who had died serving their country. The number of deaths of British troops throughout the conflict stands at 453. The death toll among US military personnel stands at 2,349.

Two British brothers were sent to prison Wednesday November 26, 2014, for conspiring to attend a terrorist training camp in Syria, becoming the first Britons jailed after returning from the war-torn country. Hamza and Mohammed Nawaz, from London, were arrested in September 2013 after arriving in England by ferry from France. They were carrying AK-47 ammunition brought home as a trophy as well as photos and videos from their time in Syria. The brothers pleaded guilty, and 23-year-old Hamza Nawaz was sentenced to three years in prison. His 31-year-old brother, described as the instigator of the plan, received four-and-a-half years. Judge Christopher Moss told the brothers they had been training "to support the rebel fighting in Syria." ---

British soldiers were responsible for the deaths of almost 200 innocent men, women and children during eight years of fighting in Afghanistan. Most of those killed were victims of “collateral damage” when caught up in crossfire between British forces and the Taliban. But dozens were killed in airstrikes and artillery barrages, while others were shot dead after being mistaken for insurgents. More than 40 civilians were reportedly killed in one British attack in 2007. The Ministry of Defence paid on average £3,000 in compensation for every person killed, a fraction of the amount that would have been paid to a British civilian accidentally killed by the Army. The troops damaged or destroyed more than 4,000 Afghan homes. Since 2006, when British troops first arrived in Afghanistan, the government paid out £4.2million in compensation for damage to property. £570,000 in compensation was given to the families of 186 people who were killed in fighting against the Taliban or who were mistakenly shot dead by British troops. The government also paid out £307,000 in compensation to about 200 Afghan civilians wounded by UK forces.

On Friday January 15, 2015, Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri has been sentenced to life in prison by a court in New York for supporting terrorism. He was convicted in May of multiple charges, including hostage-taking and plotting to set up a terrorism training camp in the US. His trial followed a lengthy extradition process from the UK. Judge Katherine Forrest called Abu Hamza's actions "barbaric" and "misguided" and said she was sentencing him to life because she could not think of a time when it would be safe to release him. ---

Three male teens from Britain who reached Turkey before being deported to the U.K. and arrested are believed to be the latest examples of a worrying trend —the rising number of young Britons seeking to travel to Syria to join extremists there. The three suspects were being questioned at a central London police station after their alleged bid to get to Syria. The three males, two 17-year-old boys and a 19-year-old man, have been arrested on suspicion of planning terrorist acts.

Turkish authorities have detained a British woman attempting to reach Syria. The 21-year-old was detained at a bus stop in Ankara, Turkey's capital. Cell phone records showed she was planning to join ISIS but she was caught using Turkish intelligence, rather than British tip off

On Tuesday March 17, 2015, a British 16-year-old boy whose two elder brothers were killed fighting in Syria's civil war has been barred from travelling abroad. Mr Justice Hayden made the boy a ward of court, which bars him from leaving the jurisdiction of England and Wales. The judge made the ruling in the Family Division of the High Court in London after social services raised fears he could travel to Syria. He said the teenager could not be named. But he said the local authority which had applied for him to be made a ward of court was Brighton and Hove City Council.

Five teenage girls who expressed an interest in travelling to Syria have been banned from leaving the country by a high court judge. The move came after concerns were raised by the local council about the girls, two of whom were aged 15 and three of them 16. At a hearing in London, Mr Justice Hayden made them wards of court, which prevents them from leaving the jurisdiction of England and Wales. The judge also made orders removing their passports and those of adults involved in their care. The judge said he made the latter order because of evidence that, in at least one other case, young girls had travelled on passports belonging to members of their family. There was also evidence that the family members in the case had not been full and frank with social services and that the girls had been moving to a more radicalised position.

Nine British citizens were arrested in Turkey on Wednesday April 1, 2015, suspected of trying to cross illegally into Syria. The group included four children -the oldest being 10 or 11, with the youngest born in 2013. The nine were arrested at the Turkey-Syria border. It didn't say why the group allegedly was trying to get into Syria. ---

On Friday April 3, 2015, the home of Rochdale Labour councillor Shakil Ahmed is being searched by police after it was revealed his son Waheed Ahmed, 22, is among nine of his relatives being held in Turkey. The five adults includes two women aged 47 and 22, three men aged 24, 22 and 21, and four children aged one, three, eight and 11. They were arrested at a paramilitary outpost in Reyhanli, a town that borders rebel held parts of Syria, as they tried to cross into Syria. Mr Ahmed said among those detained with his son were Waheed's aunt, Zadia Bi, two of Zadia's sons and one of the son's wives. They are expected to be deported back to the UK where counter-terrorism police and social services will question them.

On Friday April 3, 2015, British police arrested six people at the southern English port of Dover on suspicion of terrorism offences related to the ongoing conflict in Syria. The five men and one woman were detained in the departure zone of the port. The group were now in custody in central England and searches were underway in Birmingham where the men lived. British security services estimate some 600 Britons have gone to Syria or Iraq to join militant groups, including the man known as "Jihadi John" who has appeared in several Islamic State beheading videos. About half are thought to have returned.

On Saturday April 18, 2015, we were told that British Muslim father who police fear is travelling to Islamic State with his four young children was a member of a banned extremist group. Police are hunting Asif Malik, his partner Sara Kiran and their family who have gone missing and are feared to be travelling to Syria. The parents and daughter Zoha, seven; son Essa, four; son Zakariya, two; and one-year-old son Yhaya have not been seen for nearly two weeks.

Six people arrested by counter-terrorism police have been released without charge. A 21-year-old man was arrested at Birmingham airport and two women and two men aged between 22 and 47 were held at Manchester airport. A 30-year-old man was arrested in the Rochdale area earlier this month. They had been arrested on suspicion of commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000. The force said on Saturday April 18, 2015, that all six have been released without charge as no evidence was uncovered to suggest any imminent threat to the communities of Rochdale or the UK.

A British couple believed to have been en route to Syria with their four children are being held in Turkey we were told Sunday April 19, 2015. Sara Kiran, 29, and Asif Malik, 31, are in police custody in Ankara with their children, all aged seven and under. The family, from Slough, Berkshire, was reported missing on 16 April. Relatives had appealed for their safe return.

The Home Office has been ordered to arrange for a deported migrant family to be returned to Britain from Nigeria. The Home Office will face contempt of court proceedings unless the woman and her five-year-old son are located and transported back to the UK at the Home Office’s expense by Thursday 23 April 2015. It is believed to be the first time that an immigration judge has demanded that the Government retrieve asylum-seekers previously deported from the UK. ---

A British man built improvised explosive devices with “deadly intent” in a campaign against American soldiers in Iraq. Anis Abid Sardar is being tried at Woolwich crown court in London over his alleged role in the Iraqi insurgency. Sardar, 38, from Wembley, London, is accused of making bombs in Syria that were planted on a road running west out of Baghdad throughout 2007. One of them is alleged to have killed 34-year-old Sgt First Class Randy Johnson, of 2nd Stryker cavalry regiment, when it hit the armoured vehicle he was travelling in on 27 September 2007. US soldiers were also seriously injured by the blast and others were wounded in a firefight while dealing with another IED Sardar had made.

The UK is to send an extra 125 military trainers to Iraq to help in the battle against Islamic State. David Cameron made the announcement at the G7 in Bavaria, ahead of a meeting with the Iraqi leader on Monday June 8, 2015. The latest pledge will take the number of UK personnel training Iraqi security forces to more than 275, but No 10 dismissed claims of "mission creep. The additional help was being given at the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. Most of the extra personnel will be involved in training Iraqi soldiers to deal with explosive devices.

Three British sisters -Khadija Dawood, Sugra Dawood and Zohra Dawood- and their nine children, including one aged three, are feared to have travelled to conflict-hit Syria we were told on Sunday June 14, 2015. The three women and the youngsters had gone on an Islamic pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. But the nine failed to return to the UK four days ago and worried relatives contacted the police. The family has flown on 9 June from Medina in Saudi Arabia to Istanbul in Turkey, a commonly used route into Syria.

Three missing Bradford sisters feared to be trying to get to Syria with their nine children were stopped before an earlier flight we were told Wednesday June 17, 2015. Khadija, Sugra and Zohra Dawood and their children missed a flight to Saudi Arabia in March after being questioned by security officials. However, they were subsequently cleared to travel and rebooked their flights. One of the women has "made contact" with family, indicating she may already be in Syria. The women's brother, Ahmed Dawood, is believed to be fighting with extremists in the country.

A family of 12 from Luton, including a baby and two grandparents, could have travelled to Syria after going missing we were told Tuesday June 30, 2015. They have not been seen since 17 May after visiting their home country of Bangladesh. It is believed the family stopped in Turkey on their way home before entering Syria.
The family is:

• Muhammed Abdul Mannan, 75, and his wife Minera Khatun, 53
• Their daughter Rajia Khanom, 21, and sons Mohammed Zayd Hussain, 25, Mohammed Toufique Hussain, 19, Mohammed Abil Kashem Saker, 31, and his wife Sheida Khanam, 27
• Mohammed Saleh Hussain, 26, and his wife Roshanara Begum, 24, along with three children, aged between one and 11 ---

The families of two east London schoolgirls who travelled to Syria are distraught after learning they have married.

Shamima Begum and Amira Abase, both 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, left home in February to join the Islamic State (IS) group, and two of them are now married. The girls have contacted their families "some weeks ago" to tell them of the marriages, which took place "some time ago". The families are distraught, because it doesn't bode well for their return. The girls are starting to grow roots socially, and deep roots.

On Tuesday July 14, 2015, we were told:

• MORE than 60 Britons have died while fighting for Islamic terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq. The figure is twice that reported last year and suggests a sharp increase in the rate of British fighters killed in the service of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The new death toll means that nearly one in 10 of the estimated 700 British jihadists who have gone to Syria has been killed or has killed themselves in suicide attacks since the conflict started drawing in British foreign fighters in 2012.
• 43 UK women and girls are believed to have travelled to Syria in the past year. Women who travelled might never be able to return home. They cannot get involved directly in fighting. They are regularly married off to fighters.

On Wednesday July 15, 2015, we were told that more than 60 Britons have died while fighting for Islamic terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq. The figure, confirmed by government sources, is twice that reported last year and suggests a sharp increase in the rate of British fighters killed in the service of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The new death toll means that nearly one in 10 of the estimated 700 British jihadists who have gone to Syria has been killed or has killed themselves in suicide attacks since the conflict started.

One of three young Britons who featured in a prominent Islamic State (Isis) recruiting video last year is believed to have been killed by an air strike in Syria. Authorities are confident that Khan was now dead but this was not absolutely categorical. The death was likely to have happened about two weeks ago.

On Thursday July 23, 2015, John Prescott has told Tony Blair it was his decision to invade Iraq that stops people voting for Labour and not Jeremy Corbyn. Lord Prescott served as Mr Blair's deputy prime minister for the entirety of his 10 years in Downing Street but this morning he lashed out at his former boss's attack on Mr Corbyn. Mr Blair said yesterday that the party would lose two more elections if it chose the "old-fashioned leftist platform" of Mr Corbyn, adding: “Even if I thought it was the route to victory, I wouldn’t take it.” ---

Britain is to reopen its embassy in Tehran, four years after it closed.  The embassy was closed in 2011 after it was stormed by Iranian protesters during a demonstration against sanctions imposed by Britain. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond will visit Iran at the weekend with a delegation of business leaders we were told on Thursday August 20, 2015.

On Thursday August 20, 2015, we were told that the Labour leadership frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn is to issue a public apology over the Iraq war on behalf of the party if he becomes leader next month, a move Tony Blair repeatedly resisted. Corbyn said he would apologise to the British people for the “deception” in the run-up to the 2003 invasion and to the Iraqi people for their subsequent suffering. Such an apology would be important symbolically and signal a wider departure from existing Labour’s defence and foreign policy. The MP made a vow that suggests future UK military interventions will become rarer, that Britain will never again unnecessarily put our troops under fire and our country’s standing in the world at risk, that Labour will never make the same mistake again, will never flout the United Nations and international law.

A schoolgirl “fully radicalised” by Islamic State propaganda must be removed from her family home, the high court has ruled. A family division judge said the “intelligent, educated, ambitious” 16-year-old from east London, who has already attempted to travel to Syria to become a “jihadi bride”, must be taken away from her “deceitful parents” and from a household full of terrorist propaganda –including pictures of beheadings and material on bomb-making and how jihadi should hide their identity. The girl, who can only be referred to as B, was suffering “psychological and emotional harm” through exposure to extremism of a kind similar to that seen in sex abuse cases.

On Wednesday August 26, 2015, Sir John Chilcot mounted a robust defence of his embattled Iraq war inquiry, prompting families of those who lost relatives in the conflict to make a renewed threat of legal action to accelerate its publication. The inquiry chairman expressed sympathy over “the anguish of the families of those who lost their lives in the conflict”, following weeks of political and media criticism over his failure to set a publication date. Chilcot, in his statement, suggested that the government and Whitehall were partly to blame, citing delays in requests for classified documents including records of discussions between Tony Blair and George Bush. The group ‘Military Families Against the War’, expressed disappointment that no date for publication has been set.

On Thursday August 27, 2015, we were told that a British man described as a "top cyber jihadist" has been killed in a military drone strike in Syria. Junaid Hussain, 21, a convicted computer hacker from Birmingham who fled to Syria in 2013, had been a "high-value target" within the Islamic State group.

A mother and her four children have gone missing and are feared to be travelling to Syria. Police are trying to trace Zahera Tariq, 33, and children Muhammad, 12, Amaar, 11, Aadid, four and Safiyyah, nine, who were last seen at her home address in Walthamstow, east London, on Tuesday August 27, 2015. Mrs Tariq and the children are believed to have flown from London City Airport to Amsterdam later the same day and may now be on their way to Syria. Her husband Yasair Mahmmood, who is thought to have reported their disappearance to the police, is understood to have been left distraught. ---

The Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War may not be published until next summer, it has been claimed on Sunday August 30, 2015, amid accusations that his initial report was “riddled with errors”. Senior military commanders are said to have reacted furiously to drafts of the report blaming them for decisions which they say were the responsibility of politicians and civil servants.

A British woman who left her London home and was feared to be on her way to Syria with her four children has been detained in Turkey. Zahera Tariq, 33, and her four children, aged between four and 12, from Waltham Forest in east London, were last seen a week ago leaving London City airport on their way to the Netherlands. Turkish authorities have detained Tariq along with her four children, who are all said to be safe and well we were told on Tuesday September 1, 2015.

The UK is to provide resettlement to "thousands" more Syrian refugees in response to the worsening humanitarian crisis we were told Friday September 4, 2015. No figure has been decided but the prime minister said the extra refugees would come from camps bordering Syria, not from among those already in Europe. This means that the UK will not –as usual- collaborate with the EU and will bring more immigrants to Europe as if there are not already enough to choose from. He also announced a further £100m in humanitarian aid for those in camps in Syria, Turkey, Jordan and the Lebanon.

A woman who allegedly planned to travel to Syria with her four children has refused to stand before a judge during her appearance in court on child abduction charges. The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was detained in Turkey on Tuesday after the family went missing from their home in north-east London last week. Appearing at Camberwell Green magistrates court in south London on Saturday September 5, 2015, the woman indicated she would plead not guilty after refusing to stand in the dock before the district judge Susan Green. She was originally detained in Turkey on Tuesday, and questioned by counter-terrorism officers on her return to Britain at Luton airport on Thursday night.

Two British Islamic State jihadists who died in Syria were killed by an RAF drone strike we were told Monday September 7, 2015. Cardiff-born Reyaad Khan, 21, and Ruhul Amin, from Aberdeen, died last month in Raqqa, alongside another fighter, in the first targeted UK drone attack on a British citizen. Khan -the target- had been plotting "barbaric" attacks on UK soil. Khan was killed in a precision strike on 21 August by a remotely piloted aircraft while he was travelling in a vehicle. Another British national, Junaid Hussain, 21 from Birmingham, was killed in a separate air strike by US forces in Raqqa on 24 August. ---

The Labour Jeremy Corbyn has been elected the party's new leader by a landslide; he promised to lead a Labour "fight back”. The veteran left-winger got almost 60% of more than 400,000 votes cast, trouncing his rivals Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall. He immediately faced an exodus of shadow cabinet members -but senior figures including Ed Miliband urged the party's MPs to get behind him. Mr Corbyn was a 200-1 outsider when the three month contest began. But he was swept to victory on a wave of enthusiasm for his anti-austerity message and promise to scrap Britain's nuclear weapons and renationalise the railways and major utilities. He will now select his shadow cabinet -but without a string of existing members including Ms Cooper, Tristram Hunt and Rachel Reeves- who have all ruled themselves out. He has also hinted that he wants to change the format of Prime Minister's Questions -he faces David Cameron across the despatch box for the first time on Wednesday- suggesting other Labour MPs might get a turn. The Islington North MP won on the first round of voting in the leadership contest, taking 251,417 of the 422,664 votes cast -against 19% for Mr Burnham, 17% for Ms Cooper and 4.5% for Ms Kendall. Former minister and Gordon Brown ally Tom Watson was elected deputy leader.

The RAF has killed 330 Isis extremists during airstrikes in Iraq, according to the Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon. The figure was an estimate covering the period September 2014 to August this year. He does not believe there have been any civilian casualties as a result of UK strike activity (anybody believes this lie).

The first Syrian refugees to be resettled in the UK since the government announced it was expanding its protection scheme have arrived on Tuesday September 22, 2015. The government has not disclosed how many were in the group nor clarified whether they were already due to arrive before the scheme was expanded. The prime minister has pledged to take 20,000 Syrians from camps by 2020. But there is no agreement yet between the government and local authorities about how to manage and pay for them. The arrivals were announced on the day EU ministers backed a controversial migrant quota plan, which the UK has opted out of.

On Friday September 25, 2015, we were told that Jeremy Corbyn is set to use his first conference speech as Labour leader to apologise on behalf of his party for taking Britain into war in Iraq. He is expected to say that Labour has learnt its lesson from the conflict and will “never make the same mistake again”. He will add that in future Britain’s role in international affairs needs to change to the promotion of conflict resolution and co-operation rather than using UK forces to achieve regime change. This apology will delight Labour activists and be welcomed by some senior members of the parliamentary party who hope it will pre-empt criticisms of former ministers when the Chilcot inquiry finally reports later this year. ---

A Bradford woman who is feared to be travelling to Syria with her husband and five children has told family members she is doing what is “best for the kids. West Yorkshire police launched an appeal late on Tuesday October 13, 2015, to trace Farzana Ameen, 40, her husband, Imran, 40, and their five children, aged between five and 15.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair supported military operations in Iraq about a year before the British Parliament approved such action, according to a 2002 memo written by then-U.S.Secretary of State Colin Powell. The memo published in the Mail on Sunday (October 18, 2015) was written before Blair's April 2002 visit to President George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. “On Iraq, Blair will be with us should military operations be necessary," Powell wrote.

The Iraq director of an organization promoting journalism in conflict zones, Jacqueline Sutton, has been found dead in unexplained circumstances at Istanbul's main airport we were told Monday October 19, 2015. The Institute for War and Peace Reporting said Sutton, its country director for Iraq, was found dead at Ataturk Airport on Saturday.

A number of boats carrying dozens of migrants, including children, have landed at the RAF base at Akrotiri in Cyprus. There are about 140 people on board, but their country of origin has not yet been established. It is the first time during the current Mediterranean migrant crisis that people have arrived on UK sovereign territory. The MoD said responsibility for them rested with the Cypriot authorities (of course, the British said the land is theirs but it is easier to throw back any problem on the others). The base at Akrotiri, on the south coast of the island, has been used to launch British air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Iraq.

Only one of Tony Blair’s mea culpas in his CNN interview stands out as truly significant: his partial acknowledgment that without the Iraq war there would be no Islamic State (Isis). Until now, Blair had refused to link the two, insisting instead in the lead-up to the war that sending western troops would deny jihadis an arena and prevent Saddam Hussein from using them as proxies in his standoff with the west. The 12 years since have constantly disproved both claims. Within six months of British troops landing in Iraq, the SAS was sent to Baghdad’s western outskirts to attack jihadis who had taken up residence in Ramadi. Back then, they were a mob of foreigners and Iraqis who fed off a broad Sunni discontent fuelled by the invasion; a serendipitous vanguard that not long afterwards organised into al-Qaida in Iraq, then the Islamic State of Iraq and, since mid-2013, Isis.

The last British resident to be held in Guantanamo Bay has landed in the UK on Friday October 30, 2015, having been detained for 13 years. Shaker Aamer was held at the US military base in Cuba over allegations he had led a Taliban unit and had met Osama Bin Laden, but was never charged. There are no plan to detain him after his arrival. Mr Aamer said he felt "obliged" to everyone who fought for him to be released, and to "bring an end to Guantanamo". ---

Between 750 and 800 Britons have gone to Syria and Iraq, and 70 have been killed we were told Wednesday November 25, 2015. About half had since returned to the UK.

British Prime Minister David Cameron urged sceptical lawmakers to back airstrikes on the Islamic State group in Syria, saying Thursday November 26, 2015, that the Paris attacks have given the fight new urgency and Britain owes it to key allies to act. Cameron told the House of Commons that President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande had urged Britain to join the military campaign in Syria. Some previously sceptical lawmakers said they were convinced, but Cameron has not yet announced a date for a House of Commons vote on airstrikes.

On Wednesday December 2, 2015, MPs have overwhelmingly backed UK air strikes against so-called Islamic State in Syria, by 397 votes to 223, after an impassioned 10-hour Commons debate. A total of 66 Labour MPs sided with the government as David Cameron secured a larger than expected Commons majority. The PM said they had "taken the right decision to keep the country safe". Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had said the case for war did "not stack up" but shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn had urged MPs to "confront this evil".

In the night of December 3, 2015, RAF Tornado jets have carried out their first air strikes against the self-styled Islamic State in Syria. Four Tornados from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus took part in the operation soon after MPs voted to approve bombing. The successful strikes hit the IS-controlled Omar oil fields in eastern Syria.

A man wielding a knife slashed a man in a London underground station on Saturday December 5, 2015, reportedly screaming "this is for Syria", before police used a stun gun to detain him in what they described as a terrorist incident. Initial reports indicated the man had also threatened other bystanders. One man had serious knife injuries that were not thought to be life-threatening and two other people had minor injuries. The knifeman appeared to claim that he was retaliating for Western attacks on Islamist militants in Syria.

A man has appeared in court charged with attempted murder after a knife attack at Leytonstone Underground station in east London on Saturday December 5, 2015. Muhaydin Mire, 29, of Sansom Road, east London, was remanded in custody at Westminster Magistrates' Court. A 56-year-old man was left with "serious" stab wounds and another person was injured during the attack.

An English tourist hamlet is set to be over-run by thousands of male migrants from Calais after the Government announced plans for an asylum seeker centre. Shockingly the men largely from “war-torn and morally corrupt nations” in east Africa and some parts of the Middle East will outnumber the horrified villagers. The 150 residents of Earnley, near the popular Witterings beaches in West Sussex, have overwhelmingly voted against the Home Office plans for Earnley Concourse, a former educational holiday home for foreign students, to be turned into a temporary home for men fleeing their war-torn homelands in the Middle East and Africa. Many will come from the notorious Jungle camp in Calais. The plans have caused panic in the hamlet and surrounding area; the plan for more than 6,000 young men to come through Earnley in a year is "entirely disproportionate". Residents of the tiny hamlet -which has about 70 homes, one church and no shops- are concerned the arrival of the men will put their safety at risk. And business owners in nearby Bracklesham, where the nearest shop is, are worried the influx of refugees will put their fragile tourist industry at risk. Trying to make the English to take a decision is hopeless be it roads, electrical stations, telephone masts, airports, …  

On Saturday January 9, 2016, we were told that dozens of cases in which British soldiers are accused of unlawfully killing Iraqi civilians have already been referred to prosecutors with more than 50 deaths set to be examined. The Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat) has sought advice from the Service Prosecuting Authority (SPA) on unlawful death cases involving 35 alleged killings, and 36 cases of alleged abuse and mistreatment. The SPA –the military equivalent of the Crown Prosecution Service– is preparing to advise on an additional 20 cases of unlawful killing and 71 cases of mistreatment in the near future.

Nearly 300 British personnel who served in Iraq have been contacted by investigators looking into allegations of war crimes, with some of them facing interrogation on their doorsteps. The Iraq historic allegations team (Ihat), the government-established criminal investigation into claims of murder, abuse and torture during the Iraq war, said it has written to veterans a week after it warned that some may face prosecution. In some cases the letters were hand-delivered and it suggested that investigators had taken the opportunity to “ask a few questions” where possible. In a statement released on Friday January 8, 2016, it defended its actions, saying their investigators had carried out “standard police practice”. About 280 veterans have been sent documents telling them they were involved in an incident under investigation. It is standard police practice to send letters as a means of contacting potential witnesses.

On Monday January 11, 2016, we were told that solicitors hounding British troops over their role in the Iraq War plan to launch more than 1,100 compensation claims. A law firm wants to use the Human Rights Act to seek cash pay-outs for the families of alleged victims. Public Interest Lawyers will pursue the High Court civil claims even in cases where the soldiers are cleared by official investigations. The taxpayer will pick up the bill.

All four Bethnal Green schoolgirls who left Britain to join Islamic State have married men approved by the terrorist group, with two becoming widows within months of arriving in Syria, their families have been told. Three of them fled from their east London homes in February 2015 to join a friend who had left two months earlier. Shamima Begum was aged 15, Kadiza Sultana 16 and Amira Abase 15 when they fled while on a half-term break, taking a flight from Gatwick to Turkey, which borders Syria. Their 15-year-old school friend, who is not being named, left Britain in December 2014 to join Isis in Syria. All four became “jihadi brides”. Amira married an Australian jihadi, who was killed fighting for the terrorist group. Kadiza, the eldest of the three who left in February, is also now a widow. Tasnime Akunjee, solicitor for two families of the girls who left in February, said: “The families are beyond words in terms of their levels of worry. They were children when they made the decision to go and we as a society should treat them as victims of grooming.” In communications with their families in London, the girls say that Isis has banned the use of mobile phones in their stronghold of Raqqa.

The Iraq historic allegations team (Ihat), set up by the last Labour government in 2010 to examine claims of murder, abuse and torture during the Iraq war, has decided not to proceed in 57 cases we were told Saturday January 23, 2016. A further case was stopped by the military’s service prosecuting authority. Earlier this month, nearly 300 Britons who served in Iraq were contacted by investigators looking into allegations of war crimes, with some being interrogated on their doorsteps. We will never know how many Iraqis were killed or abused by British soldiers. ---

A UN panel will conclude Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is being "arbitrarily detained" in the UK we were told Thursday February 4, 2016. Mr Assange, 44, claimed asylum in London's Ecuadorean embassy in 2012. He wants to avoid extradition to Sweden over a rape claim, which he denies. The Met Police says Mr Assange will be arrested if he leaves the embassy. Swedish prosecutors said the UN panel's decision would have "no formal impact" on its ongoing investigation. Mr Assange earlier said his passport should be returned and his arrest warrant dropped if the UN panel, due to deliver its findings on Friday, ruled in his favour. The Australian was originally arrested in London in 2010 under a European Arrest Warrant issued by Sweden over rape and sexual assault claims. In 2012, while on bail, he claimed asylum inside the Ecuadorean embassy in Knightsbridge after the UK Supreme Court had ruled the extradition against him could go ahead. Julian Assange plans to travel to Ecuador upon leaving the country’s London embassy. Melinda Taylor, a lawyer on Assange’s legal team, says that if there is a positive ruling for Assange she expects Sweden and the U.K. to respect their international obligations and comply with the outcome and allow him to leave freely. If this is the case, Taylor expects him to seek safe passage to Ecuador.

On Thursday March 3, 2016, Home Secretary Theresa May today won a significant legal battle to resume deportations of failed asylum seekers to Afghanistan after the Court of Appeal overturned an injunction imposed last year amid concerns the country was too dangerous. The ruling could now see hundreds of failed asylum seekers, including those who arrived in Britain as unaccompanied children years ago, returned on special charter flights from London. The decision comes amid growing concern about the security situation in Afghanistan, with not only the Taliban posing a threat but also the influence of so-called Islamic State. Last year was the bloodiest year on record for civilian casualties in the country. The Afghan government has been pleading with the UK not to resume deportations.

Two men are facing life imprisonment after being convicted on Wednesday March 23, 2016, of plotting to kill police or soldiers in a shooting inspired by so-called Islamic State. Suhaib Majeed, 21, of west London, was convicted of conspiracy to murder and preparation of acts of terrorism. Ringleader Tarik Hassane, 22, of west London, had admitted the same charges. Two men who provided a gun were cleared of conspiracy to murder and preparing terrorist acts by an Old Bailey jury, but admitted firearms offences. Nyall Hamlett, 25, and Nathan Cuffy, 26, had admitted their role in handing over a gun to Majeed and Hassane but denied knowing what it was going to be used for.

The Prince of Wales is expected to visit Iran, in what will be the first official royal trip to the country for more than 40 years. The Foreign Office and Clarence house are in talks with the authorities in Tehran about arranging a tour for Prince Charles this autumn we were told Sunday March 29, 2016. The proposed trip has been made possible as a result of an international deal made between international bodies last year, in which nuclear sanctions on Iran were lifted. It is hoped that Prince Charles’ trip will help to boost trade and commercial links between the two countries, as well as marking a significant change in Anglo-Iranian relations. ---

The family of Jean Charles de Menezes has lost a human rights challenge over the decision not to charge any UK police officer for his fatal shooting. The Brazilian was killed at London's Stockwell Tube in 2005 by police who mistook him for a terror suspect. The decision that there was not enough evidence to prosecute anyone did not breach human rights laws, judges said on Wednesday March 30, 2016. Mr de Menezes, an electrician who was 27, was followed and shot in the head by police marksmen who mistook him for a suicide bomber. The incident came amid heightened tensions two weeks after the 7 July London bombings -in which four suicide bombers killed 52 people- and one day after attempted bombings on the London public transport network

A former head of Britain’s civil service, Gus O’Donnell, said a “Brexit” from the EU could mean up to a decade of difficult negotiations for the U.K. and that the two-year timeline laid out in the relevant EU treaty clause was too short. Britain’s referendum on EU membership is scheduled for June 23.

A delivery driver from Luton has been convicted of plotting to kill a US airman outside a base in East Anglia. Junead Khan, 25, a supporter of so-called Islamic State (IS), was found guilty of preparing terrorist acts. Khan had driven past RAF Lakenheath and other US bases on his delivery route, and had discussed staging a car crash and attacking a soldier with a knife. He was also convicted of preparing to join IS in Syria. His uncle Shazib Khan was also convicted of the same charge.

Two men and a woman from Birmingham have been charged with terror offences as part of a UK probe launched after the Paris and Brussels attacks. Mohammed Ali Ahmed and Zakaria Boufassil are both charged with funding terrorism on or before 7 July 2015. Mr Ahmed and Soumaya Boufassil are separately charged with preparation of acts of terrorism between January 2015 and this month. The three, from Small Heath, are due before magistrates in London on Friday April 29, 2016. They were among five people arrested in Birmingham on 14 April and at Gatwick Airport the next day. A third man, Fazal Sajjad Younis Khan also from Small Heath, has been charged with possession of CS spray. He has been released on bail to appear before Birmingham magistrates on 13 May. A 59-year-old man remains on bail while the investigation continues.

The long-awaited report into the Iraq War will be published on 6 July, inquiry head Sir John Chilcot has said. Sir John said national security vetting of the report had been completed and it would be published without any material being redacted. Relatives of the 179 British service personnel killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2009 would get "early sight" of the report. Prime Minister David Cameron said the publication date was "good news". He succeeded to delay the publication by at least 5 years!

On Tuesday May 10, 2016, David Cameron has described Nigeria and Afghanistan as "fantastically corrupt" in a conversation with the Queen. The PM was talking about this week's anti-corruption summit in London. He said that Nigeria and Afghanistan are possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, elected last year after vowing to fight corruption, said he was "shocked".

Britain and the West do not care about corruption when they are doling out millions in aid, Afghanistan said Thursday May 12, 2016. A senior Afghan official hit back at David Cameron's claim this week that his country and Nigeria are 'fantastically corrupt'. He told Mr Cameron's anti-corruption summit in London today: 'We inherited, and I quote, a 'fantastically corrupt' system. ---

A British jihadi is said to have died in a suicide bombing targeting the Iraqi army. Abu-Hurayrah al-Britani carried out the attack north of the city of Baiji.

Chilcot report (Wednesday July 6, 2016):

• Tony Blair overstated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, sent ill-prepared troops into battle and had "wholly inadequate" plans for the aftermath, the UK's Iraq War inquiry has said.
• Chairman Sir John Chilcot said the 2003 invasion was not the "last resort" action presented to MPs and the public.
• There was no "imminent threat" from Saddam - and the intelligence case was "not justified", he said.
• Mr Blair apologised for any mistakes made but not the decision to go to war.
• UK went to war before peaceful options exhausted and military action was "not last resort", Chilcot report say.
• Invasion in 2003 was based on “flawed intelligence and assessments” that went unchallenged
• Threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were "presented with certainty that was not justified"
• Former PM Tony Blair says decision for action made "in good faith" and he takes "full responsibility for any mistakes"
• Families of Britons killed during Iraq War say conflict was "a fiasco" and do not rule out legal action
• PM David Cameron says "lessons must be learned" and announces two-day Commons debate next week
• Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says war was "act of military aggression launched on a false pretence"
• The U.S. pushed the U.K. into military action in Iraq "too early,” a former British ambassador to the United Nations has said in the wake of the Chilcot report. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, U.K. ambassador to the U.N. in 2003, said it would have been “much safer” to give weapons inspectors in Iraq another six months to continue their work before intervening.
• Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has apologized for mistakes made during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, but has insisted that he was right to take the decision to lead the U.K. to war.
• Blair conceded some errors, including that some of the intelligence on which the decision to go to war was based later turned out to be wrong, and that planning for the aftermath of the invasion could have been better.
• But, he thinks that removing Saddam Hussein was the right choice, even with hindsight that the world is better and safer as a result of it.
• He rejected the argument that removing Hussein helped fuel the present chaos in the Middle East, and said that the presence of an internationally recognized government in Iraq has helped it to tackle the huge challenges it faces now.

Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom will battle it out to become the next leader of the Conservative Party after Michael Gove was eliminated from the contest. After the second MPs' ballot on Thursday July 7, 2016, Home Secretary Mrs May finished with 199 votes, Energy Minister Mrs Leadsom 84 and Mr Gove, the justice secretary, 46. Conservative members will now decide the winning candidate, with the result due on 9 September. The winner will become the UK's second female prime minister. ---

The Government has responded Friday July 8, 2016, to the petition asking for a second referendum: “The European Union Referendum Act received Royal Assent in December 2015, receiving overwhelming support from Parliament. The Act did not set a threshold for the result or for minimum turnout. The EU Referendum Act received Royal Assent in December 2015. The Act was scrutinised and debated in Parliament during its passage and agreed by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Act set out the terms under which the referendum would take place, including provisions for setting the date, franchise and the question that would appear on the ballot paper. The Act did not set a threshold for the result or for minimum turnout. As the Prime Minister made clear in his statement to the House of Commons on 27 June, the referendum was one of the biggest democratic exercises in British history with over 33 million people having their say. The Prime Minister and Government have been clear that this was a once in a generation vote and, as the Prime Minister has said, the decision must be respected. We must now prepare for the process to exit the EU and the Government is committed to ensuring the best possible outcome for the British people in the negotiations.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office”

On Sunday July 10, 2016, Theresa May has promised to put workers on the boards of major firms and curb excess corporate pay, as she starts her campaign to be Tory leader and PM. The home secretary vowed to put the Conservative Party "at the service" of working people. Mrs May, who campaigned to stay in the EU, also said: "Brexit means Brexit and we're going to make a success of it."

Theresa May is set to become the UK's next prime minister after Andrea Leadsom pulled out of the contest to become Conservative Party leader. Mrs May, 59, who backed staying in the EU, has been home secretary since 2010. Mrs Leadsom, who campaigned to leave the EU, said the UK needed "strong and stable government" and that Mrs May was "ideally placed" to implement Brexit.

Theresa May has said she is "honoured and humbled" to have been chosen as the new leader of the Conservative Party and UK prime minister. She pledged to build a "better Britain" and make Brexit a "success". David Cameron is to tender his resignation to the Queen on Wednesday. Mr Cameron, PM since 2010, decided to quit after the UK's Brexit vote.

Meanwhile the Labour Party is falling to pieces with Mrs Eagle is contesting the role pf leader saying that Mr Corbyn is incompetent. Angela Eagle said on Monday July 11, 2016, she can provide the leadership "in dark times for Labour" that Jeremy Corbyn cannot, as she launched her leadership challenge. Ex-shadow business secretary Ms Eagle said she wanted to bring the party and the country "back together". Labour Party general secretary Iain McNicol said he had received enough nominations to trigger a contest. Mr Corbyn has refused to step down since losing the support of most of his MPs in a vote of no confidence. Launching her leadership bid, Ms Eagle said: "I'm not a Blairite. I'm not a Brownite. I'm not a Corbynista. I am my own woman."

The Petitions Committee has decided to schedule a House of Commons debate on the EU petition. The debate will take place on 5 September at 4.30pm in Westminster Hall, the second debating chamber of the House of Commons. The debate will be opened by Ian Blackford MP. The Committee has decided that the huge number of people signing this petition means that it should be debated by MPs. The Petitions Committee would like to make clear that, in scheduling this debate, they are not supporting the call for a second referendum. The debate will allow MPs to put forward a range of views on behalf of their constituents. At the end of the debate, a Government Minister will respond to the points raised. A debate in Westminster Hall does not have the power to change the law, and won’t end with the House of Commons deciding whether or not to have a second referendum. Moreover, the petition – which was opened on 25 May, well before the referendum – calls for the referendum rules to be changed. It is now too late for the rules to be changed retrospectively. It will be up to the Government to decide whether it wants to start the process of agreeing a new law for a second referendum. The Petitions Committee is a cross-party group of MPs. It is independent from Government. ---

Prominent Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has threatened to attack British troops planned to be sent to Iraq for an anticipated offensive to retake Mosul from Daesh. Sadr said in a Sunday July 24, 2016, that the British troops would be considered as “invaders” if they took part in any operations in Iraq. Last week, British defines minister Michael Fallon had said the U.K. would increase the number of the soldiers to be sent to Iraq to combat Daesh to 500. In early July, Sadr said American soldiers would “be a target for us” after U.S. Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter declared that the Pentagon would send 560 more troops to Iraq. Sadr, who has thousands of supporters, fought U.S. troops several times during the 2003 occupation of Iraq.

On Wednesday July 27, 2016, French firm EDF approves multi-billion pound investment in UK's first nuclear plant in decades at Hinkley Point. However Thursday July 28 the plans to build the first new UK nuclear plant in 20 years have suffered an unexpected delay after the government postponed a final decision until the early autumn. Contracts were to be signed on Friday but Business Secretary Greg Clark said the government will "consider carefully" before backing it. EDF chief executive Vincent de Rivaz has cancelled a trip to Hinkley Point on Friday following Mr Clark's comments. Critics of the plan have warned of environmental damage and potential escalating costs. They are also concerned that the plant is being built by foreign governments. One third of the £18bn cost is being provided by Chinese investors. Once more the British cannot take any decision. This project has been in the making for about 10 years.

Theresa May has urged the president of Iran to resolve the case of a British mother detained in Tehran since April. The prime minister “raised concerns” about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a charity worker with both British and Iranian passports, during a phone call with Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday August 10, 2016. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37, who is accused of plotting to topple the Iranian regime, was arrested at Imam Khomeini airport as she was trying to return to Britain after a holiday visiting family with her two-year-old daughter, Gabriella. Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, 41, of Hampstead, north London, recently said that she had suffered dangerous weigh loss.

A policeman died and two of his colleagues were wounded when an attacker on a motorcycle threw an explosive device at their car. We were told Thursday August 11, 2016, that the attack happened on Tuesday night, in the country’s Kurdish region, in the predominantly Kurdish town of Marivan near the border with Iraq.

On Friday August 12, 2016, we were told that a schoolgirl who fled Britain last year to join Islamic State is believed to have been killed in an airstrike in Syria, apparently while planning to escape. Kadiza Sultana, who left her east London home in Bethnal Green during the half-term break in February 2015 with friends Shamima Begum and Amira Abase, is thought to have died during an airstrike on the terror group’s stronghold of Raqqa in May this year. The three schoolgirls, aged 15 and 16 when they caught a flight from Gatwick to Turkey and a bus to the Syrian border, were gifted students at the Bethnal Green academy before being lured by Isis propaganda, abandoning their A-level courses and families to marry jihadis in Syria.

Radical UK cleric Anjem Choudary has been convicted of inviting others to support the so-called Islamic State group. Choudary, 49, drummed up support for the militant group in a series of talks posted on YouTube. He was convicted alongside his confidant, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman. Counter-terrorism chiefs have spent almost 20 years trying to bring Choudary, a father of five, to trial, blaming him, and the proscribed organisations which he helped to run, for radicalising young men and women. ---

The British Army is losing (by demission) 400 soldiers a month amid concerns the Iraq war legal witch-hunt is damaging morale and creating a ‘state of fear’. 4,770 soldiers quit in the 12 months to April –6 per cent of the total force and an increase of 20 per cent from six years ago. Former soldiers have spoken of how they were treated like murderers and made to feel ashamed of their years of service after facing multiple probes into front-line incidents that happened a decade ago. Whitehall hopes that the news that Public Interest Lawyers –the main law firm hounding soldiers– is to close this month, will boost morale. Overall, 7,850 personnel left the Army, Navy and RAF in the year 2015-16 – the equivalent of 654 each month. This was an increase of 240 from the 7,610 voluntary departures in the previous year.

On Monday September 5, 2016, radical preacher Anjem Choudary has been jailed for five-and-a-half years for inviting support for the so-called Islamic State group. The 49-year-old was convicted at the Old Bailey after backing the group in an oath of allegiance published online. The judge, who described Choudary as calculating and dangerous, passed the same sentence on his confidant Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, 33. Both men were also sentenced to a notification order lasting 15 years, which requires them to tell police if details such as their address change. Choudary, of Ilford, east London, and Rahman, from Palmers Green, north London, were convicted last month of inviting support for IS  between 29 June 2014 and 6 March 2015. The trial heard the pair also used speeches to urge support for IS after it declared a caliphate in the summer of 2014.

Former Prime Minister, David Cameron, has decided Monday September 12, 2016, to leave the British Parliament.

On Saturday September 17, 2016, the Government has defended its investigation into alleged abuse by British soldiers in Iraq of three servicemen cleared over an Iraqi teenager's death may be prosecuted. The group, one of whom is a decorated major, have been warned they could be tried for manslaughter of a 19-year-old who drowned in the wake of the 2003 invasion. A military investigation into the death in 2006 cleared the soldiers, two of whom are still serving, of wrongdoing.

On Friday September 23, 2016, Isis militants have attempted to shoot down RAF planes with surface-to-air missiles as British jets pound the group’s positions ahead of a crucial advance on Mosul. Jihadists have recently claimed responsibility for downing several aircraft, including a Syrian fighter jet and an American drone, but their attempts against British aircraft have so far been unsuccessful.

The United Kingdom has blocked European Union efforts to launch an independent international inquiry into Saudi Arabia’s war of aggression in Yemen. The Netherlands had hoped to gather support for its proposal that the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva establish an inquiry to look into war crimes and civilian deaths in Yemen. The proposal, submitted Friday September 23, 2016, by Slovakia on behalf of the EU, was replaced by a much weaker call for the UN body to dispatch a mission “to monitor and report on the situation” after the UK refused to give its backing. Human Rights Watch and other rights groups protested the UK’s stance, accusing it of protecting its arms deals with the Saudi regime.

The UK will begin the formal Brexit negotiation process by the end of March 2017, Theresa May has said on Sunday October 2, 2016. The timing on triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty means the UK looks set to leave the EU by summer 2019. Mrs May told the Tory Party conference the government would strike a deal with the EU as an "independent, sovereign" UK. She attacked those who "have still not accepted the result of the referendum". She said: "It is up to the government not to question, quibble or backslide on what we have been instructed to do, but to get on with the job." ---

On Monday November 7, 2016, we were told that British citizens affiliated to jihadist groups in Iraq will be hunted down as part of a new kill or capture strategy. A list of UK citizens that features around 200 jihadists currently at large in Iraq has been compiled by the UK’s intelligence agencies. A kill list has been drawn up containing the names of hundreds of very bad people. A lot of them are from the UK. The hunt is now on for British Islamists who have effectively gone off-grid. This is a multinational Special Forces operation. The SAS have their own part of the plan and they will be going after British nationals. This is a kill or capture mission and it has already begun.

A human rights lawyer who was pursued by the government after an inquiry rejected allegations that British troops murdered and tortured Iraqi civilians has admitted paying a middle man to find his clients in Iraq. Phil Shiner, whose most high profile case exposed the torture and death of Baha Mousa at the hands of British troops in Basra in 2003, has admitted a string of misconduct charges, a disciplinary tribunal was told on Thursday December 8, 2016. Shiner faces being struck off by the solicitors disciplinary tribunal –bringing to an end a career in which he has been involved in a string of cases alleging systematic brutality and torture of prisoners by British troops and in doing so becoming a thorn in the side of the Ministry of Defence. The MoD has paid out more than £20m in compensation to more than 300 Iraqi civilians and the international criminal court is examining the way the British government is investigating hundreds of allegations against British troops.

A British soldier shot dead in a suspected accident in Iraq on Monday January 2, 2017, has been named as L/Cpl Scott Hetherington. The soldier serving with 2nd Bn the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment became the first member of the British forces to die in Iraq since 2009, when he was killed at a military base in Taji, north of Baghdad. The young father-of-one was not killed by enemy activity and his death was now under investigation.

Friday January 27, 2017, Jeremy Corbyn has accused Theresa May of “alternative facts” over her stance on the Iraq War after she branded it a “failed policy” despite voting for it. The Labour leader said the Prime Minister used her US speech to declare that the days when the two countries invaded countries to nation-build were over. Ms May told Republican congressmen she wanted the UK and US to “stand strong together”, but added: “This cannot mean a return to the failed policies of the past. The days of Britain and America intervening in sovereign countries in an attempt to remake the world in our own image are over. “But nor can we afford to stand idly by when the threat is real and when it is in our own interests to intervene. We must be strong, smart and hard-headed. And we must demonstrate the resolve necessary to stand up for our interests.” Ms May did not directly mention the invasion of Iraq, or her own own vote, in March 2003, for Britain to join America in that invasion. However, Mr Corbyn –who did vote against the Iraq War– was quick to tweet: “I don't remember her joining me in the voting lobby. Maybe she has alternative facts?” ---

On Wednesday February 1, 2017, a human rights lawyer who brought abuse claims against UK troops after the Iraq War has been struck off for misconduct. Phil Shiner, from the now-defunct law firm Public Interest Lawyers, had 12 charges of misconduct proved against him by a panel of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. He had admitted acting recklessly by publicly claiming UK troops unlawfully killed, tortured and mistreated Iraqis. The defence secretary said Mr Shiner had "made soldiers' lives a miseBritain Wednesday April 19, 2017:

• Tony Blair still faces being dragged before the courts for leading Britain into the disastrous Iraq War. Leading barristers representing bereaved families of British troops killed in the controversial conflict believe there is evidence the ex-prime minister committed ‘misfeasance in public office’. The legal team has gone through the 2.6million-word, 12-volume Chilcot Report into the invasion of Iraq with a fine-tooth comb for the past eight months. They now conclude there is a strong case Mr Blair misled Parliament to justify the catastrophic 2003 war, which cost the lives of 179 UK personnel.
• The British Attorney General is seeking to block a separate attempt to bring legal action against the former prime minister over the conflict. Relatives of British troops who died in Iraq believe Mr Blair should be hauled before the courts for taking part in the US-led invasion under the false pretext that Saddam Hussein’s regime was harbouring weapons of mass destruction.

 

Britain Tuesday July 4, 2017:

• The most senior judge in England and Wales will hear a case attempting to overturn a ban on prosecuting Tony Blair over the Iraq war.
• A private criminal prosecution against the former Labour prime minister was blocked in 2016 by Westminster magistrates court when it was ruled Blair would have immunity from any criminal charges. But that ruling by the district judge, Michael Snow, will be reviewed before the lord chief justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and Mr Justice Ouseley.
• The current attorney general, Jeremy Wright QC, wants the block on proceedings upheld. He will have a barrister in court to try to stop the attempted private prosecution.

 

Britain Wednesday July 5, 2017:

• The Chilcot inquiry’s conclusion that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and undermined the United Nations requires the prosecution of Tony Blair, the high court has heard.
• In his opening argument calling for a war crimes trial in Britain, Michael Mansfield QC said that the offence of waging an aggressive war has effectively been assimilated into English law.
• The attempt to bring Blair (together with the former foreign secretary Jack Straw and the former attorney general Lord Goldsmith) to court has been launched by the former Iraqi general Abdulwaheed al-Rabbat.
• Rabbat, said Mansfield, was motivated by last year’s publication of the report of the Chilcot inquiry into the 2003 Iraq war.

 

Britain Monday July 31, 2017:

• Tony Blair should not face prosecution for his role in the 2003 Iraq war, the high court has ruled. The lord chief justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and another senior judge, Mr Justice Ouseley, said that there was no crime of aggression in English law under which the former prime minister could be charged.
• The decision blocks an attempt by a former Iraqi general, Abdulwaheed al-Rabbat, to bring a private war crimes prosecution against the former Labour leader. The two judges recognised that a crime of aggression had recently been incorporated into international law, but said it did not apply retroactively.
• The offence is not on UK statute books and it was for parliament to decide whether or not to do so. A recent Supreme Court case entitled Jones had ruled there was no crime of aggression in English law. ---

Britain Thursday December 7, 2017:

• UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson is expected to visit Iran this weekend, intensifying a diplomatic drive to secure release of a British-Iranian woman detained for 20 months. Mr Johnson is calling for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a charity worker who is said to be close to a nervous breakdown, to be released on humanitarian grounds.
• Last month he was forced to apologise after saying she had been “teaching people journalism” when she was arrested. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family and her employer, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, say she was in fact on holiday.
• The British government had sought to keep Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case out of the headlines since her detention. But the domestic political furore, combined with news reports on Iranian state media, turned it into a key priority for the foreign secretary.
• His visit comes after a report on Iranian state media last month suggested Zaghari-Ratcliffe could be released on parole in time for Christmas, having served one-third of her five-year term. The judiciary has no problem with releasing her but the Revolutionary Guards [which arrested her] have resisted an early release. A visit by Mr Johnson would mean those inside the regime who care about relations with the UK and Europe have managed to win this case.

Britain Thursday December 21, 2017:

• A British mother in prison in Tehran has been told she is eligible for early release, in the most positive sign yet she may be freed on humanitarian grounds following pressure from the UK government.
• Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe told her husband Richard that her lawyer said the Iranian judiciary this week changed her case status from “closed” to “eligible for release”.
• The charity worker, who has British and Iranian nationality, is serving a five-year sentence for trying to topple the Iranian government. She has consistently denied the charges against her, saying she was on holiday in the country.

Britain Saturday December 23, 2017:

• Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s possible early release from an Iranian jail may be scuppered by a prospective second trial for “spreading propaganda.
• Gholamhossein Esmaili, the head of the justice department in Tehran province, was quoted as saying that the dual-national charity worker has “another ongoing case against her in court, and we do not know if she would be found guilty or not”.

. Bulgaria
- We were told on December 24, 2003, that a team of American and Russian experts recovered 37 pounds of highly enriched uranium from a Bulgarian reactor. This operation aimed to prevent terrorists to get hold of it, as there was enough material for a small atomic bomb.
- At the beginning of January 2004, 25 to 30 Bulgarian soldiers refused to go to Iraq after the killing of 5 of their countrymen in December.
- On Thursday September 16, 2004, the Bulgaria parliament decided to send medical teams to Afghanistan. The Bulgarians will join a Spanish military hospital working with the multinational NATO contingent located in Kabul. The Bulgarian team will spend nearly six months in Kabul, working in the international airport in Kabul. Spanish, Hungarian, Polish, German and Bulgarian medics will join their efforts in the Kabul hospital.
- One Bulgarian soldier, Private Gardi Gardev, killed in Iraq on Friday March 4, 2005 was probably hit by friendly fire from coalition troops. The shooting came on the same day as US troops fired on a car carrying Italian journalist Giulilana Sgrena, wounding her and killing an Italian intelligence officer who negotiated her release from insurgents.
- Bulgaria's eighth soldier killed in Iraq was buried Tuesday March 8, 2005. He was posthumously promoted by the Bulgarian military to the rank of officer candidate, to honour his bravery in Iraq. Bulgaria's Defence Minister Nikolay Svinarov said that Mr. Gurdev died when his patrol came under heavy fire from the direction of a nearby US Army communications facility, about 160 kilometres southeast of Baghdad.
- Bulgaria's Defence Minister Nikolay Svinarov said he wanted all his country's troops to leave Iraq by the end of the year. Bulgaria's 462 troops, currently serving in Iraq under Polish command, are due to be replaced by a new contingent of 370 troops in June.
- Bulgaria's cabinet on Thursday February 2, 2006, approved a plan to send about 155 non-combat soldiers and staffs to Iraq in March where they will stay 12 months. The Bulgarian unit will be under the command of the US military police, and the US side will help Sofia for the transports and logistics. Nearly all the 400 Bulgarian soldiers returned home by December 30, 2005, in accordance with the decision made by the Parliament last May. Bulgaria had 19 deaths in Iraq, including 13 soldiers and six civilians, since August 2003.
- On February 22, 2006, Bulgaria's parliament has approved a government decision to send troops back to Iraq for non-combat duties. The unit, made up of 120 soldiers and 34 support staff, will guard the Ashraf refugee camp north of Baghdad from the middle of next month. Bulgaria pulled its 400-strong military contingent out of Iraq in December, having lost 13 troops and six civilians since joining US-led forces in 2003. Strong public opposition had built up to involvement in the Iraq war. The Bulgarian unit will be under US control and is expected to remain in Iraq for a year.

.Canada
- On December 6, 2004, we were told that 1,000 Canadian airport security uniforms and badges have disappeared. This could create a security problem at the Canadian airports. Some of the uniforms and badges were then offered on sale on ebay.
- Canada denied refugee status to a US soldier, Jeremy Hinzman, who fled his unit rather than fight in Iraq. Jeremy Hinzman asked for refugee protection arguing he would face persecution for his political beliefs, or cruel or unusual punishment if returned to the United States.
- A Canadian company said on Tuesday April 5, 2005, it had won a contract to develop the Himrin oil field in northern Iraq. Iraq's oil ministry awarded the engineering and supply contract for the 100,000 barrel a day field to OGI Group. The deal is expected to become binding once the new government is formed.

- On January 19, 2008, Canada said the United States has joined a notorious group of countries -- Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Afghanistan and China, among others -- as a place where foreigners risk torture and abuse, according to a training manual for Canadian diplomats. The manual is intended to create "greater awareness among consular officials to the possibility of Canadians detained abroad being tortured." Part of the workshop is devoted to teaching diplomats how to identify people who have been tortured. It features a section on "US interrogation techniques," including forced nudity, hooding and isolation.

- Canada's new top general said on June 2, 2008, he's still confident Canadian soldiers can quit combat operations in Kandahar by 2011, despite a surge in Taliban attacks and gloomier assessments of the Afghan war from the Pentagon. General Walter Natynczyk replaced Rick Hillier as Chief of the Defence Staff in Ottawa on Wednesday in a pomp-and-circumstance-charged ceremony that ended with the departing top soldier riding off into retirement.

- Canadian officials on Friday October 16, 2009, denied media reports that Canadian military troops in Afghanistan ever paid off Taliban in exchange for not being attacked. The denial came after the Agency France-Presse reported that Canadian soldiers tried to buy off insurgents. A British newspaper also reported Friday that Italian military and intelligence officials had handed over money to the Taliban in exchange for peace. Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay said it was the first time he was hearing of the report and described it as likely "Taliban propaganda."

- The Ministers` Meeting between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on March 30, 2010, has made it clear that Canada is determined to withdraw its 2.800 troops from Afghanistan between July and December 2011.

- Canada involvement in Afghanistan, Friday June 3, 20111:
- October 7, 2001 - Prime Minister Jean Chretien's Liberal government announces that Canada will contribute troops to the international force being formed to conduct a campaign against terrorism in Afghanistan.
- October 8, 2001 - Defence Minister Art Eggleton announces the launch of Operation Apollo, Canada's contribution to the U.S.-led operation in Afghanistan. Canada announces it will send 2,000 troops, six warships and six planes to the Persian Gulf.
- December 2001 - Forty troops from Joint Task Force 2 -Canada's elite commando unit- arrive in Afghanistan. They are the first Canadian soldiers to arrive in the country.
- February 2002 - First regular combat troops from Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry arrive in Afghanistan for a six-month mission.
- April 18, 2002 - Four Canadian soldiers are killed in a friendly fire incident after an American F-16 fighter dropped a laser-guided bomb on them during a training exercise. Sgt. Marc Leger, Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, Pte. Richard Green and Pte. Nathan Smith are the first Canadian casualties in Afghanistan.
- July 17, 2003 - Canada takes command of the 3,600-strong international peacekeeping force in Kabul.
- February 9, 2004 - Canadian Forces Lt.-Gen. Rick Hillier takes six-month command of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, leading 5,500 soldiers from more than 30 countries.
- August 2005 - Approximately 250 Canadian soldiers take over the provincial reconstruction team based in Kandahar.
- May 17, 2006 - Capt. Nichola Goddard becomes the first female Canadian combat soldier to be killed after she died during a firefight with Taliban insurgents. Later that day the House of Commons approves an extension of the Canadian deployment to Afghanistan until 2009.
- September 3, 2006 - Four Canadian soldiers are killed and nine others are wounded during fighting with Taliban insurgents outside Kandahar.
- September 4, 2006 - Pte. Mark Anthony Graham is killed and over 30 Canadian soldiers are wounded in a friendly-fire incident after two U.S. warplanes accidentally strafe NATO forces.
- April 8, 2007 - Six Canadian soldiers are killed when a roadside bomb detonates near their armoured vehicle. Two more Canadian troops are wounded. It is described as the deadliest day in combat for Canadian troops since the Korean War.
- July 4, 2007 - Six Canadian soldiers and their translator are killed by a roadside bomb while riding in an armoured vehicle in Afghanistan's Panjwaii district.
- March 13, 2008 - House of Commons votes to extend Canada's mission in Afghanistan until 2011.
- December 30, 2009 - Calgary journalist Michelle Lang is killed when the armoured vehicle she was riding in strikes a roadside bomb. Four Canadian soldiers are also killed in the attack. She is the first Canadian journalist killed in Afghanistan.
- May 18, 2010 - Col. Geoff Parker is killed after a car full of explosives drove into a NATO convoy. Parker, 42, is the highest-ranking Canadian soldier to be killed in Afghanistan.
- October 5, 2010 - Capt. Robert Semrau is demoted and dismissed from the Canadian Forces after being convicted of disgraceful conduct for shooting a severely wounded Taliban fighter on an Afghan battlefield in October 2008.
- November 2010 - Prime Minister Stephen Harper announces the Canadian military presence in Afghanistan will continue in a non-combat role until 2014. ---

Justin Trudeau, who becomes Canada’s first new leader in a decade following his Liberal party’s landslide win in general elections, has promised to end his country’s military mission against the Islamic State group (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria. Monday October 19, 2015’s general election ousted incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative party, which has been in power since 2006, and handed Trudeau’s Liberal party an absolute majority. One of Trudeau’s most controversial stands has been over Canada’s bombing missions in Iraq and Syria, as part of the US-led coalition. There are currently 69 Canadian military personnel in the Kurdistan Region, working with the Peshmerga forces.

After long refusing to disclose how many soldiers have killed themselves after serving in the Afghanistan war, the Canadian military released new figures late Monday November 2, 2015, that raises the suicide count to at least 59. This includes 53 who were still-serving military members and six veterans. It includes four suicides of active-duty members that have occurred this year. The suicide count is more than one third of the number of military members who died in the war. There were 158 military deaths in theatre during the 13-year NATO-led combat operation that began in 2001 and ended last year. The Forces also disclosed another figure that it had been keeping secret, citing privacy concerns as the reason. Of the soldiers who died in the mission, six took their lives.

On Tuesday November 24, 2015, Canada's military is facing fresh allegations its bombs may have killed civilians in northern Iraq. 10 civilian workers were allegedly killed and as many as 20 others injured after an airstrike by Canadian warplanes last week in Mosul. The Department of National Defence confirmed that two of its CF-18 Hornets struck an "ISIS weapons production facility in the vicinity of Mosul" on November 19.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday February 8, 2016, that Canada will pull out six jets that have been bombing targets in Iraq and Syria, ending a controversial combat role in the fight against Islamic State. Canada will end its bombing missions by February 22 but keep two surveillance planes in the region as well as refuelling aircraft, and triple the number of soldiers training Kurdish troops in northern Iraq to about 200.  Officials in the United States welcomed the announcement, which came after sustained diplomatic pressure from major allies to persuade Canada to do as much as possible.

. Chile
On March 4, 2004, we were told that US firms are recruiting mercenaries in Chile to replace soldiers on security duty in Iraq. Former commandos, soldiers, and seamen are paid $4,000 a month to guard oil wells. The firm Blackwater USA has already trained 60 former commandos in North Carolina from where they will be taken to Iraq for a period of 6 months to one year. At the end of 2003 there were 10,000 hired civilians working on security in Iraq. Their pay is higher that the soldiers and some US military personnel resigned to join civilian contractors getting as much as $1,000 a day.

On September 19, 2006, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has launched a robust defence of Iran's nuclear programme. During a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr Chavez warned the world of dire consequences if his ally was attacked by the US. Mr Chavez has threatened to cut off oil supplies to the US if provoked. This, he explained, on top of Iran shutting off its oil exports, could send oil prices soaring to well above $100 a barrel.