UK risks ‘tearing open’ US ties with Israel arms embargo: Trump adviser

File photo of Israel's F-35 Lightning II fighter (AFP)
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Updated 30 August 2024
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UK risks ‘tearing open’ US ties with Israel arms embargo: Trump adviser

  • ‘Special relationship’ could suffer ‘serious rift,’ endanger Britain’s role in F-35 program: Robert O’Brien
  • UK must ‘take every step necessary’ to shut down ICC investigation into Israeli PM, defense minister

London: The UK risks damaging its relationship with Washington over a potential ban on weapons sales to Israel, a senior adviser to Donald Trump has warned.

The former US president’s last national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, said an arms ban on Israel by the UK government would also endanger Britain’s role in the F-35 jet program, The Guardian reported.

O’Brien, who is now a key voice on national security in the Trump election campaign, made the remarks at an event hosted by the Policy Exchange think tank.

He also urged the UK to avoid damaging the “special relationship” with the US by “taking every step necessary” to shut down the International Criminal Court investigation into Israel’s leadership.

The F-35 is the result of a multinational program that includes the UK as a partner and Israel as a sales customer.

Parts of the jet are produced by British arms companies, and Israel has used the aircraft in its devastation of Gaza.

The UK government is deciding whether to suspend arms export licenses to Israel over fears that British systems may have been used by the Israel Defense Forces to breach international humanitarian law.

“There is a potential there for a serious rift, whether it is a Harris or Trump administration, between the UK and the US, and I would tread very carefully,” O’Brien said.

“The F-35 is a joint project and it is going to continue to go to Israel no matter what Turkiye, the UK or any other country has to do with it.

“You would hate to see a situation where the UK is no longer a partner in the F-35 project or other advanced platforms because of a very ill-advised arms embargo on Israel.

“The consequences of an arms embargo on Israel is something the UK really needs to think about at a time when Russia and China are posing a massive threat to the West. A lot of high-tech on which the UK relies comes directly or indirectly via Israel.”

O’Brien also attacked Britain’s stance on the ICC probe, which he accused of being highly selective.

Under former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the UK objected to the court’s issuing of arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

But under the current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the objections were dropped in late July.

O’Brien accused the court of being “an impediment to peace in the region,” adding: “For the ICC to go after Israeli leaders is a joke … the UK should take every step necessary to shut it down.”

If the UK moves ahead with an arms embargo on Israel, British firms may face difficulty in selling products in the US, O’Brien said.

Washington would “certainly” launch congressional action instituting a counter-embargo on major UK weapons firms, including BAE Systems, he added.

“It (the arms embargo) is an extraordinarily dangerous policy proposal and has the potential to tear open the special relationship and really hurt the Western alliance and NATO.”


Mali says two more army posts attacked as jihadist violence escalates

Updated 8 sec ago
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Mali says two more army posts attacked as jihadist violence escalates

  • Hundreds reported killed in recent attacks across West African country
  • Junta has struggled to improve security since seizing power

BAMAKO: Islamist militants hit two more military installations on Wednesday and Thursday, Mali’s army said, the latest in a quick spate of attacks that the insurgents say have killed hundreds of soldiers and underscored their gains.
Ground and air reinforcements were being mobilized on Thursday morning to respond to an attack on a security post in Mahou, located in eastern Mali near the border with Burkina Faso, an army statement said.
The attack was claimed by Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa Al-Muslimin (JNIM), an Al Qaeda-linked Islamist militant group active in Mali and Burkina Faso. Information on a death toll was not immediately available.
A military spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
On Wednesday afternoon, “armed terrorists” struck a military camp in Tessit, near the border with Burkina Faso and Niger, and Mali’s military sent in aerial reinforcement, a separate statement said.
There has been no claim of responsibility for that attack, though security analysts said it could have been perpetrated by fighters from the Islamic State branch active in the Sahel region.
“The camp was attacked, and there was a violent exchange of fire. We learned that the attackers had taken control of the camp, and the population was leaving Tessit,” said an official from the nearby town of Ouattagouna, who spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.
Widespread attacks
Mali’s junta seized power following coups in 2020 and 2021, promising to restore security in a country that has grappled with jihadist militancy for more than a decade. But attacks continue in large swathes of the country.
An army statement on Thursday described “a resurgence of cowardly and barbaric attacks” in recent weeks and said it was responding with a “counter-offensive,” listing operations in six locations on Wednesday alone.
An attack on Sunday on a military base in Boulkessi, in central Mali near the frontier with Burkina Faso, killed dozens of soldiers, security sources told Reuters this week. JNIM said in a statement the death toll was more than 100 soldiers and mercenaries, with more than 20 others captured.
On Monday, JNIM said it targeted a military airport and Russian mercenaries in the northern city of Timbuktu, where residents described taking cover from explosions and gunfire.
Like neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso, Mali has cut military ties with Western nations and turned to Russia for support.
JNIM also claimed to have bombed Malian and Russian soldiers on the outskirts of Bamako on Wednesday, though Reuters could not independently confirm that incident and the army has not commented on it.
Consulting firm Control Risks said in a note on Thursday the claim was “reliable” and that further attacks on and near Bamako were likely as JNIM seeks to undermine Mali’s military rulers.


Brazil’s president accuses Israel of ‘premeditated genocide’ in Gaza

Updated 35 min 46 sec ago
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Brazil’s president accuses Israel of ‘premeditated genocide’ in Gaza

  • “It’s a premeditated genocide from a far-right government,” da Silva said

PARIS: Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday during a trip to Paris accused Israel of carrying out “premeditated genocide” in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.

“It’s a premeditated genocide from a far-right government that is waging a war against the interests of its own people,” he said at a joint press conference with France’s President Emmanuel Macron.

While Lula has previously used the term “genocide,” Macron has refused to, saying last month it was not for a “political leader to use to term but up to historians to do so when the time comes.”


Detained Greenpeace activists to face judge over Macron waxwork

Updated 05 June 2025
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Detained Greenpeace activists to face judge over Macron waxwork

  • Activists stole a 40,000-euro statue of Macron and placed it in front of the Russian embassy and later outside the headquarters of French electricity giant EDF to protest France’s economic ties with Russia

PARIS: Two Greenpeace activists who stole French President Emmanuel Macron’s waxwork from a Paris museum to stage anti-Russia protests have been detained and were set to appear before an investigating judge on Thursday, their lawyer and prosecutors said.

On Monday, several activists stole a 40,000-euro statue of Macron from the Grevin Museum and placed it in front of the Russian embassy and later outside the headquarters of French electricity giant EDF to protest France’s economic ties with Russia.

The statue, estimated to be worth 40,000 euros ($45,500), was returned to police on Tuesday night but two activists, a man and a woman, were detained on Monday, their lawyer Marie Dose said.

Jean-François Julliard, head of Greenpeace France, said that the detained pair were people who drove a truck during the protest in front of the Russian embassy, and not those who “borrowed” the statue from the museum.

“They have spent three nights in a cell,” said Dose, denouncing the detention as “completely disproportionate.”

The lawyer denounced the “deplorable” conditions in which the two activists were being held, “attached to benches for hours and dragged from police station to police station.”

One activist spent the night without a blanket and was unable to lie down because her cell was too small, the lawyer said.

“The other had to sleep on the floor because there were too many people in the cell,” she added.

“This treatment is worrying for Greenpeace activists and raises the question of a dangerous shift in the criminal response to acts of civil disobedience,” she said.

The pair will appear before an investigating magistrate on Thursday as part of a judicial inquiry into the “theft of a cultural object on display,” the Paris prosecutor’s office told AFP.

The judge will decide whether to charge them.

The lawyer argued that “no harm resulted from the non-violent action,” arguing that “all offenses” ceased to exist once the statue has been returned to the museum.

The Grevin Museum filed a complaint on Monday but subsequently took the matter in good humor. “The figures can only be viewed on site,” it said on its Instagram feed.

The activists managed to slip out through an emergency exit of the museum by posing as maintenance workers.


Suspect in murder of Tunisian man to appear before French judge: prosecutors

Updated 05 June 2025
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Suspect in murder of Tunisian man to appear before French judge: prosecutors

PARIS: A Frenchman accused of murdering his Tunisian neighbor in the south of France will appear before an anti-terrorism judge on Thursday, the national anti-terror prosecutor’s office said.

Christophe B. is accused of killing Hichem Miraoui in an attack Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau described as both “racist” and “anti-Muslim.”

Anti-terrorism prosecutors have taken over the case, the first time a far-right racist attack has been treated as a “terrorist” offense since the unit was created in 2019.


Russia to repair warplanes damaged by Ukraine’s drones

Updated 05 June 2025
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Russia to repair warplanes damaged by Ukraine’s drones

  • Ukrainian strikes targeted airfields in Siberia and the far north where Russia houses heavy bombers that form part of its strategic nuclear forces
  • Commercial satellite images showed what appeared to be damaged Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers and Tu-22 Backfire long-range bombers

MOSCOW: Russian warplanes were damaged but not destroyed in a June 1 attack by Ukraine, and they will be restored, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.

Ukrainian strikes targeted airfields in Siberia and the far north where Russia houses heavy bombers that form part of its strategic nuclear forces.

The United States assesses that up to 20 warplanes were hit and around 10 were destroyed, two US officials said, a figure that is about half the number estimated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

But Ryabkov, who oversees arms control diplomacy, told state news agency TASS: “The equipment in question, as was also stated by representatives of the Ministry of Defense, was not destroyed but damaged. It will be restored.”

It was not immediately clear how swiftly Russia could repair or replace the damaged aircraft – if at all – given the complexity of the technology, the age of some of the Soviet-era planes, and Western sanctions that restrict Russian imports of sensitive components.

Commercial satellite imagery taken after the Ukrainian drone attack shows what experts said appear to be damaged Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers and Tu-22 Backfire long-range bombers that Russia has used to launch missile strikes against Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told US President Donald Trump in a telephone conversation on Wednesday that Moscow would have to respond to the attacks, Trump said.

Russia has an estimated fleet of 67 strategic bombers, including 52 Tu-95s, known as Bear-H by NATO, and 15 Tu-160s, known as Blackjacks, of which about 58 are thought to be deployed, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

In addition, it has 289 non-strategic fighters and bombers, including Tu-22s, Su-24s, Su-34s and MiG-31s, according to the Bulletin. Russia has given no detail about which aircraft were damaged but said that Ukraine targeted five air bases.