PM working on plan to be agreed at Nato summit with view that any response has to be coordinated international effort David Cameron is planning to indicate to Barack Obama and other Nato leaders at a summit in Wales next week that Britain is keeping open the option of joining the US in launching air strikes against forces of the Islamic State (Isis) in Iraq. As Washington seeks to build a multi-national...
Defence minister says Australias Super Hornets are an obvious first port of call as the US seeks international support for action Australia has signalled its willingness to contribute Super Hornets to US-led air strikes in Iraq, with the defence force at a high state of readiness. The defence minister, David Johnston, said Australia was yet to be approached to provide assistance other than humanitarian...
Controversial case, which will go to jury next week, is one of few in which US forces have been tried for civilian deaths in Iraq One of the darkest days of the US occupation of Iraq was relived in a Washington courtroom on Wednesday as the prosecution of four Blackwater security contractors accused of killing 14 civilians in a mistaken attack in Baghdad reached an emotional and legal climax. Seven...
US effort to build international coalition against Isis advanced, as UK and six other nations agreed to arm the Kurdish peshmerga The Pentagon warned on Tuesday that Islamic State (Isis) militants have global aspirations, ratcheting up already dire US rhetoric against the jihadist army that has overrun much of Iraq and Syria. Quite frankly, were not turning a blind eye to their global aspirations...
In an exclusive interview, the former UN secretary general says the world's reluctance to intervene in multiple emergencies is scuppering the search for peace The world has let down the people of Syria, leaving tens of thousands to die as neighbouring nations wage proxy wars instead of working to prevent the bloodshed that has engulfed the country for the past three years, according to the former UN...
Iraq was a grand folly, but the official report must still observe the boundary between privacy and disclosure Publish Chilcot and be damned , by all means, but which Chilcot? Whitehall's inability to untwist its knickers over Gordon Brown's inquiry into Tony Blair's war in Iraq has become farcical. The report was ready four years ago, yet David Cameron claims he cannot order publication as it is "independent"....
State of Law wins 92 of parliament's 328 seats but Maliki needs to form broader coalition to clinch third term as PM A coalition led by Iraq's Shia prime minister has emerged as the biggest winner in the country's first parliamentary elections since the US military withdrawal in 2011, electoral officials said. The results boost Nouri al-Maliki's chances of a third term in office, although he still...
We are told that the disgraceful delay in issuing the Chilcot report on the lead-up to the Iraq war is due to problems in agreeing how much of private conversations between Mr Blair and President Bush should be made public ( Report , 17 May. If these conversations were about golf or amateur art, both men are entitled to whatever level of privacy they choose. If, however, the conversations were about...
PM admits frustration after Commons committee lambasts delay in publishing report from inquiry that completed public hearings in 2011 David Cameron has said he expects the long-awaited Chilcot report into the Iraq war to be published by the end of the year. The prime minister admitted on Friday it was "frustrating" that publication had been delayed and said the public "want to see the...
PM's comments suggest UK and US are close to settling dispute over publishing exchanges between Tony Blair and George Bush David Cameron said he hoped the Chilcot inquiry into the conduct of the Iraq war will publish its report by the end of the year, adding: "I think we shouldn't have to wait much longer". His remarks suggest the long-running delays caused by disagreements over whether to...
The inquiry wants to publish documents that the Cabinet Office wants to remain secret or to be redacted Bernard Jenkin is absolutely right. These words have almost certainly not previously appeared in Guardian leader columns. Nevertheless, the Thatcherite chair of the Commons public administration select committee is right on the money this time in his protest about the delay in publishing the Chilcot...
Reports that the international criminal court might take over the cases of British soldiers accused of war crimes in Iraq or Afghanistan begs two questions ( Report , 14 May). Why doesn't the ICC address one of the most serious war crimes launching an aggressive war, allegedly committed by more senior figures including politicians? And what about war crimes in the US, including the use of torture...
With efforts to force a public inquiry proving unsuccessful, a cache of at least 2,626 recordings remains mostly unseen ICC to investigate claims that British troops carried out war crimes Not long after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Mercer, then the British military's most senior lawyer in the country, paid a visit to an interrogation centre that the army's intelligence corps...
Court to conduct preliminary examination of around 60 alleged cases of unlawful killing and claims of mistreatment Allegations that British troops were responsible for a series of war crimes after the invasion of Iraq are to be examined by the international criminal court (ICC) at The Hague, the specialist tribunal has announced. The court is to conduct a preliminary examination of what have been estimated...
Move cannot lead to prosecutions if court believes UK authorities are conducting genuine investigations The re-opened preliminary examination of allegations that British troops abused Iraqi detainees between 2003 and 2008 is the last thing the government must have wanted. In January, when Phil Shiner's firm Public Interest Lawyers and a Berlin-based litigation pressure group known as ECCHR sent a 250-page...
Which conflicts have led the most ex-armed forces members to seek help from Combat Stress, the veterans' mental health charity? Between 2012 and 2013, the number of veterans reaching out to the charity from the Afghanistan conflict rose by 57% and over 7,000 deployed in Northern Ireland have been in contact. Using the menu to the left of this interactive you can see how the figures have changed since...
Medical officials say 14 people have been killed in attacks in Dujail, Dawr and Tarmiyah, day after army killed 11 in Fallujah A series of bombings in Iraq have killed 14 people a day after army shelling killed 11 civilians and gunmen in the militant-held city of Fallujah. Police officials said the deadliest of Saturday's attacks happened in the afternoon when a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden...
The funnyman was mistaken for the former PM who then wrote to him about the hunt for WMD. But why did Blair also phone an underworld figure to discuss the war against Saddam? Katie Price's Twitter putdown packs a punch With the Chilcot report into the Iraq war due to make landfall sometime in the 25th century it is expected to be a Buck Rogers plotline the search for enlightenment on that most...
Boris Johnson is right, Blair is 'eel-like' but if the Chilcot inquiry is published soon, he might not wriggle off the hook Boris Johnson: 'eel-like' Tony Blair will avoid being imprisoned over Iraq war Boris Johnson's sympathy isn't worth much; his sentiments during his LBC interview this week were touching, but he does not have the conviction to back the campaign to see Tony Blair face justice for...
Riyadh announces arrest of 62 suspected members of jihadi group that had planned 'large-scale assassinations' Saudi Arabia has broken up a "major terrorist network" linked to al-Qaida groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen that was plotting attacks against government installations and foreign interests, authorities in Riyadh said. The Saudi interior ministry said security forces had arrested 62...