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Deportation NATO Is an Idea Whose Time Has Come
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Rupert Lowe, Restore Britain
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Deportation NATO Is an Idea Whose Time Has Come | RealClearPolitics
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Fallout over Epstein files directly threatening Prime Minister Keir Starmer
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Fallout over Epstein files directly threatening Prime Minister Keir Starmer – CBS News
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Nigel Farage Senses Moment as Tory Defections Mount | RealClearPolitics
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Nigel Farage sees May 7th as a pivotal moment for his populist movement, following Reform’s rise and the Tories’ fall in polling.
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Nerozzi & Crilly, DC Examiner
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Trump’s leaves NATO allies “dumbfounded” and “disgusted” with remarks dismissing sacrifices in Afghanistan
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London — European military veterans, families of the fallen, and politicians have voiced outrage after President Trump claimed the U.S. had “never needed” its NATO allies, and that allied troops had stayed “a little off the front lines” during the 20-year war in Afghanistan.
“The only time NATO has ever enacted Article 5 was after the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the United States, and the world rallied to the support of the U.S.,” Alistair Carns, the U.K. government’s Minister of the Armed Forces and a veteran who served five tours in Afghanistan alongside American troops, said in a video posted Friday on social media. “We shed blood, sweat and tears together, and not everybody came home. These are bonds, I think, forged in fire, protecting U.S. or shared interests, but actually protecting democracy overall.”
More than 2,200 American troops were killed in Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon. The Reuters news agency says 457 British military personnel, 150 Canadians and 90 French troops died alongside them. Denmark lost 44 troops in Afghanistan — in per capita terms, about the same death rate as that of the United States.
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“There are two great sayings worth remembering,” Carns said in his video responding to Mr. Trump’s remarks. “Number one: ‘There’s only one worse thing than working with allies. That is working without them.’ And when you do, always remember: ‘Never above, never below, always side-by-side.”
A spokesperson for U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Friday that Mr. Trump, “was wrong to diminish the role of NATO troops” in Afghanistan.
Later Friday, Starmer called the remarks “insulting and frankly appalling.”
“We expect an apology for this statement,” Roman Polko, a retired Polish general and former special forces commander who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, told the Reuters news agency.
Mr. Trump has “crossed a red line,” he said. “We paid with blood for this alliance. We truly sacrificed our own lives.”
Lucy Aldridge, the mother of the youngest British soldier killed in Afghanistan, told the BBC she was “deeply disgusted” by Mr. Trump’s comments. Her son William Aldridge was only 18 years old when he was killed in a 2009 bomb blast, while trying to save fellow troops.
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“Families of those who were lost to that conflict live the trauma every day. I’m not just deeply offended, I’m actually deeply disgusted,” Aldridge said. “This isn’t just misspeaking, he has deeply offended, I can imagine, every NATO member who sent troops to fight in Afghanistan and certainly the families of those who never came home.”
The former head of the British Army, Lord Richard Dannatt, called Mr. Trump’s comments, “outrageous.”
“Well frankly, one was dumbfounded, because they’re [Mr. Trump’s comments] so factually incorrect. Absolutely disrespectful to our nation, to our armed forces and to the families of the 457 British service men and women who lost their lives in Afghanistan,” Dannatt told the BBC.
“The comments that he made … are just totally disrespectful, wrong and outrageous. It does make you wonder whether he is actually fit for the job that he apparently is doing,” Dannatt added.
“We Europeans must do more, and if there’s anything positive that Donald Trump has done in his assorted ramblings over the last year, it’s actually to make that point,” the former U.K. army chief said. “European governments must really listen up, stand up now and find the cash that’s needed to increase our military capability, not because we want to fight a war, but we need to deter further aggression.”
CBS News asked the White House on Friday about Mr. Trump’s remarks on the role America’s NATO allies played in the war in Afghanistan, and the criticism directed at him.
Deputy press secretary Anna Kelly replied with the following statement: “President Trump is right — America’s contributions to NATO dwarf that of other countries, and his success in delivering a five percent spending pledge from NATO allies is helping Europe take greater responsibility for its own defense. The United States is the only NATO partner who can protect Greenland, and the President is advancing NATO interests in doing so.”
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U.K. man accused of drugging, raping ex-wife over 13 years to appear in court
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London — A British man was to appear in court Friday accused of drugging and raping his ex-wife for over 13 years, alongside five other men also charged with sexual offenses against her.
Philip Young, 49, is facing 56 sexual offense charges for alleged abuse of his former wife Joanne Young, 48, including rape and administering a substance with the intent to stupefy or overpower to allow sexual activity.
Joanne Young has waived her legal right to anonymity, drawing parallels to the 2024 trial in France during which Gisele Pelicot waived her right to anonymity to raise awareness about sexual violence. She was drugged and raped by her husband, and dozens of men he invited to join in the abuse, for years in their home.
Voyeurism, possession of indecent images of children and possession of extreme images are among the other charges filed against Young. CBS News’ partner network BBC reports that Young served as a local government councilor with the Conservative party between 2007 and 2010. Prosecutors say the alleged crimes took place between 2010 and 2023.
He is yet to enter a plea, and was remanded in custody after a hearing in December.
Young was to be joined by five other men, aged 31 to 61, also accused of various sexual offenses against his ex-wife, at Winchester Crown Court, a criminal court southwest of London.
Norman Macksoni, 47, pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and possession of extreme images. Dean Hamilton, 47, pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and sexual assault by penetration, as well as two counts of sexual touching.
The three others have not yet entered pleas.
They include Connor Sanderson-Doyle, 31, charged with sexual assault and sexual touching; Richard Wilkins, 61, charged with rape and sexual touching; and Mohammed Hassan, 37, charged with sexual touching.
Wiltshire Police detective superintendent Geoff Smith said in a statement in December that the case against Young and his co-defendants stemmed from a “complex and extensive investigation.”
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Prince Harry returns to U.K. to be in court for case accusing tabloids of illegal snooping
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London — Prince Harry was back in London on Monday, sitting in the U.K.’s highest court to take part in the third and final of his outstanding legal battles against Britain’s tabloid newspapers.
Harry is among the high-profile claimants, along with Sir Elton John and actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, who have accused the Associated Newspapers group of “unlawful information gathering.”
The 41-year-old royal, who lives in California, and his fellow celebrities claim the company, which publishes the Daily Mail and the linked MailOnline website, illegally snooped on them by hiring private investigators to hack their phones, bug their cars and access private records to generate scoops.
The publisher has denied all of the accusations, calling them “preposterous smears” and part of a coordinated effort driven by the claimants’ personal dislike of the news media.
In a witness submission seen by CBS News, Harry said it was, “disturbing to feel that my every move, thought or feeling was being tracked and monitored just for the Mail to make money out of it,” adding that the “terrifying” intrusion made him, “paranoid beyond belief, isolating me.”
Karwai Tang/WireImage/Getty
Harry, the Duke of Sussex, whose case is based on 14 separate newspaper stories, says the alleged illegal information gathering between 1993 and 2011 put a “massive strain” on his personal relationships. He has long blamed the media for the death of his mother, Princess Diana, who was killed in a car crash in 1997 as her vehicle was pursued by photographers on motorcycles.
He listened in court Monday as his lawyer argued that there was, “clear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information gathering at both the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday.”
Testimony from several private investigators, who have said they worked on behalf of Associated Newspapers, will be used in the trial. CBS News’ partner network BBC news reported Monday that Harry was expected to take the stand himself to offer evidence.
During his first legal battle with the press, in 2019, against the owners of The Mirror for hacking his phone, Harry became the first senior member of the royal family to give in-person testimony in a British court in more than 130 years. Courts ruled in his favor multiple times in that case.
“The journalists who used me and the editors who sanctioned this knew full well that I was a practitioner of the ‘Dark Arts,’” private investigator Steve Whittamore said in a witness statement ahead of the trial that began Monday. “If the information the journalists requested could have been acquired legitimately … then the newspapers would have had no need to use my particular services.”
Another witness, known as “Detective Danno,” claims to have been paid the equivalent of more than $1 million by the Mail for over 20 years of work for the paper.
The publisher has argued that evidence from private detectives can’t be trusted.
Royah Nikkhah, royal editor for The Sunday Times and a CBS News contributor, said Monday that Prince William appeared to be “full of confidence” about his case, but “he’s not really relishing the prospect of being in court all week.”
Last year, Rupert Murdoch’s right-leaning News Group Newspapers settled out of court with the royal, offering a full formal apology for “serious intrusion” and a multi-million dollar payout.
The case against Associated Newspapers is expected to last nine weeks, culminating with a decision by Judge Matthew Nicklin, whose verdict will determine not only the lasting reputation of a major media company, but also who foots the bill for tens of millions of dollars in legal costs.
“If Harry wins this case, it will give him a feeling … that he wasn’t being paranoid all the time,” Nikkhah told CBS News. “If Harry loses this case, it’s huge jeopardy for him, not just in terms of cost, but in terms of pushing all the way to trial and not seeking to settle. So we have to wait and see, but it’s high stakes for Harry.”
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What It’s Like to Be Trump’s Closest Ally Right Now
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Last weekend, I asked two British foreign-policy officials what had been the most troubling moment, so far, of President Donald Trump’s world-destabilizing start to 2026. Both said (despite the British government’s refusal to acknowledge this out loud) that it was the United States’ seizure of the Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro, from Caracas, in the early hours of January 3rd. Trump “surprised us on the downside,” one said. “Just not having had an inkling that Venezuela was coming,” the other observed.
The suddenness—and the likely illegality—of the U.S. operation was disquieting because the British government has spent the past year contorting itself in order to stay in Trump’s good books, while professing belief in things like the U.N. Charter and what used to be called the rules-based order. In public, Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, has said only that he “sheds no tears” for Maduro, and that he also believes in international law. He will stand up to bullies, just not the one in the Oval Office. What would be the point, anyway? “With this Administration, you would essentially be burning your bridges. You would be destroying your access,” one of the officials I talked to said. “You might even start to knock away at some of the foundations, in terms of the military coöperation, the intelligence coöperation.” The other official just sounded wearier. “All of this is really, really hard,” he told me.
Until now, getting along with Trump has been counted as a rare policy success for Starmer, during his beleaguered eighteen months in office. Starting in 2024, both Labour Party officials and British diplomats courted the Trump campaign, adopting a posture of studied deference. “Whatever has been said about Donald Trump, white, Black, and brown working-class Americans voted for him in high numbers. And that’s something to be reckoned with by my liberal Democrat friends,” David Lammy, the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary, said, when I interviewed him for a piece in the magazine, this time last year. (Last September, Lammy became the Deputy Prime Minister; his role in the Foreign Ministry was taken by Yvette Cooper, the former Home Secretary.) In the fall, Trump enjoyed a second state visit to the U.K., during which he and Melania Trump dined with King Charles and watched a parachute display from the steps of Chequers, the Prime Minister’s Buckinghamshire country retreat. In return for its obeisance, Britain has escaped most of the Trump Administration’s wrath toward Europe, and the European Union, in particular. The country has dodged most of the tariffs imposed on the rest of the continent and signed a notional thirty-one-billion-pound “tech prosperity deal,” to encourage A.I. investment at home and in the U.S. We try not to talk about civilizational erasure.
The prize has been to keep Trump onside when it comes to Ukraine. The day after Maduro was indicted in New York and Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, told CNN that Greenland should “obviously” be part of the U.S., Starmer was in Paris, with Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelensky, agreeing to deploy British and French troops to Ukraine, in the event of a ceasefire. Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law, were there to endorse the idea, speaking of “durable security guarantees” and “real backstops,” backed up by the U.S., to stop Russian aggression. Diplomatically, at least, it all feels a long way from Zelensky’s dressing-down in the White House, eleven months ago. “That’s an enormous achievement,” one of the British officials said. The day after the meeting in Paris, British forces supported the U.S. military when it intercepted the Bella 1, a Russian-flagged oil tanker, in the North Atlantic, and Starmer and Trump caught up on the phone. “The Prime Minister has spoken to Trump several times,” the other official said. “And they have, you know, proper conversations about things. So I feel like we are still in a position to influence and we still have a partner that wants to help.”
It is impossible to overstate how much of Britain’s foreign—and security—policy is predicated on containing Vladimir Putin. In 2025, the U.K. signed a hundred-year partnership agreement with Ukraine. “It looks absolutely mad,” Richard Whitman, a professor of international relations at the University of Kent, told me. “Who would sign a treaty of that duration?” If British soldiers are eventually sent to Ukraine, it would mark a major departure for the defense of the continent. For the first time since the Second World War, the U.S. would be reduced to the role of peace guarantor, rather than being physically responsible for policing Europe’s borders. “This is a new version of the British Army of the Rhine,” one of the officials said, referring to the force, composed of thousands of British soldiers, that was stationed in Germany from the nineteen-forties to the eighties. “It’s a new European security architecture that is coming out of this, with Ukraine integrated into the West, and into NATO, in all but name.”
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Sam Knight
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Britain warns Russia after spy ship comes close to its waters:
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London — Britain warned Russia on Wednesday that it was ready to deal with any incursions into its territory after the spy ship Yantar was detected on the edge of U.K. waters north of Scotland.
Defense Secretary John Healey said the Russian vessel had directed lasers at pilots of surveillance aircraft monitoring its activities.
“This is the first time we’ve had this action from Yantar directed against the British RAF. We take it extremely seriously,” Healey said, according to the Reuters news agency.
“My message to Russia and to Putin is this: We see you. We know what you’re doing,” Healey said during a briefing in London. “And if the Yantar travels south this week, we are ready.”
“We have military options ready should the Yantar change course,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
STEFAN ROUSSEAU/POOL / AFP via Getty Images
British officials said the Yantar is part of the Russian navy, designed to conduct surveillance in peacetime and sabotage during times of war. Because of this, the U.K. and its allies track the ship and work to deter its operations whenever it approaches British territorial waters.
“It is part of a Russian fleet designed to put and hold our undersea infrastructure and those of our allies at risk,” Healey said, referencing attacks on pipelines and cables under the Baltic Sea earlier this year.
This isn’t the first time the Yantar has probed Britain’s defenses, Healey said. After a warning last year, the Yantar left U.K. waters for the Mediterranean. When the Russian ship later sailed through the English Channel in January, it was followed by HMS Somerset, a frigate assigned to homeland defense in the waters around Britain.
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Sex offender mistakenly released from U.K. prison re-arrested after manhunt
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London — A convicted sex offender who was mistakenly released early from a London prison was re-arrested Friday after more than a week of freedom, police said.
Brahim Kaddour-Cherif was one of two men set free in accidental releases from Wandsworth Prison over the past two weeks that have caused a political headache for the government and focused renewed attention on an overcrowded and overwhelmed prison system.
The other inmate, Billy Smith, 35, who was sentenced to nearly four years for fraud and accidentally released on the same day as Cherif, turned himself in at the Victorian-era lockup on Thursday.
Cherif, 24, a registered sex offender due to a previous indecent exposure conviction, was serving time for trespass with intent to steal. The Algerian national who overstayed a legal visit to the U.K. in 2019 was in the initial stages of deportation when he was allowed to walk off the prison ground on Monday.
Metropolitan Police
He was stopped by police in north London in an arrest filmed by national broadcaster Sky News. He initially denied he was the man they were looking for, but then said he wasn’t to blame for being on the streets.
“I’m not Brahim, bro,” he initially told a police officer, who said he recognized his distinctive nose. “Everyone know him, he’s in (the) news,” Cherif said.
After police officers pulled out their phones to look at the photo of the wanted man, he effectively admitted he was Cherif.
“It is not my fault,” Cherif said. “They released me illegally.”
Both men were wrongly freed from Wandsworth, which was built in southwest London in the middle of the 19th century, and was already under scrutiny after another prisoner escaped two years ago by clinging to the underside of a food delivery truck.
Ben Montgomery/Getty/Ben Montgomery Photography
The inadvertent releases followed more stringent security checks that were supposed to be in place after an asylum-seeker who inspired a rise of anti-immigrant protests was mistakenly freed from Chelmsford Prison, east of London, on Oct. 24.
Prison chiefs were summoned to a meeting Thursday to discuss the errors and said efforts were being made to update a system that still uses paper prison records.
The mistaken releases have become a source of heated debate and a political liability for the Labour government after being a thorn in the side of their Conservative predecessors.
According to government figures, 262 prisoners were released in error in the year ending March 2025, a 128% increase on the previous 12-month period.
Conservatives say the Labour government is to blame for a policy to release some inmates earlier to ensure prisons don’t exceed capacity.
But Labour has blamed 14 years of Conservative rule and years of austerity that has starved the Prison Service of resources.
“We inherited a prison system in crisis and I’m appalled at the rate of releases in error this is causing,” Justice Secretary David Lammy said after the arrest. “I’m determined to grip this problem, but there is a mountain to climb which cannot be done overnight.”
An official review of the issue has begun, but Ian Acheson, a former prison governor and adviser to U.K. government ministers, cited the overcrowding of Britain’s prisons as a reason for the rise in accidental releases.
Overcrowding has brought more pressure on the prison managers to get offenders out as quickly as possible, which has led to more movement of prisoners within the prison system, Acheson told the Telegraph newspaper.
“It is quite possible that one of the reasons for the increase in these mistakes has been the push and imperative to get people out,” Acheson told the Telegraph.
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British police say multiple people stabbed on train near Cambridge
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British police said Saturday that “multiple people” have been stabbed on a train near Cambridge and that two individuals have been arrested in connection with the incident.
British Transport Police said on X that officers are “currently responding to an incident on a train to Huntingdon where multiple people have been stabbed.”
Cambridgeshire Constabulary, the local police force, said in a social media post that armed police attended after officers were called to the scene at Huntingdon station, where the train was stopped, at 7:39 p.m. local time on Saturday. The two people were arrested at the station, which is around 75 miles north of London.
Paul Bristow, the mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, said in a post on X that he had heard of reports of “horrendous scenes” on the train. Cambridge is located in the county of Cambridgeshire.
In a social media post, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the attack an “appalling incident” that was “deeply concerning,” and urged people in the area to “follow the advice of the police.”
“My thoughts are with all those affected, and my thanks go to the emergency services for their response,” he wrote.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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Opinion | Britain’s Do-It-Yourself Version of Chinese Sabotage
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A ‘spying’ case that may have been a mistake all along sows more distrust than Beijing ever could.
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Joseph C. Sternberg
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Grand Sumo Tournament comes to London for the second time outside Japan in the sport’s 1,500-year history
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London — The world of professional sumo wrestling stepped outside of Japan for only the second time in its centuries-long history on Wednesday night, as fighters clashed on a specially constructed ring in the middle of London’s Royal Albert Hall.
The iconic venue in the British capital is hosting the Grand Sumo Tournament —the roughly 1,500-year-old sport’s most important competition — for the second time, drawing more than 44 professional wrestlers, or Rikishi, to compete in 100 bouts over five days. The only other time the tournament was held outside Japan was in 1991, when it also came to the Royal Albert Hall.
There are unique challenges in bringing sumo to London, as the contemporary national sport of Japan is rooted in two millennia of tradition, interwoven with the Shinto religion, and thus treated with the utmost respect and protection to ensure adherence to its rituals and norms.
Ryan Pierse/Getty
“One of the things that we’ve worked really hard at is to make sure that we have a good understanding of the cultural and religious significance that sumo has,” Matthew Todd, the Royal Albert Hall’s programming director, told CBS News.
He said attention to detail was “really critical to the authentic presentation that we’re able to make here.”
That meant shipping 11 tons of clay from Japan to construct the ring, or dohyo, in the center of the concert venue, where the wrestlers compete. Shipping containers were at sea for three months making the voyage. A big team of ring attendants (yobisdashi), also had to make the trip from Japan — alongside 11 interpreters to help them communicate with British workers.
Ryan Pierse / Getty Images
The roof for the dohyo, now suspended from the Albert Hall ceiling, was built in Britain, but its design is taken straight from traditional Japanese Shinto shrines, which, according to Todd, “helps to show that this is a sacred area,” in which routines and holy ceremonies are conducted as part of the tournament.
It’s a vital step, he said, to ensure the Shinto gods are paid their due respects before the fights.
Sumo is deeply intertwined with Japanese culture and religion in ways that many Western sports fans may find difficult to comprehend. According to legend, it originated as a ritual to ask the gods for a bountiful harvest, but it transformed over almost 2,000 years into the sport it is today, drawing competitors still primarily from Japan, but also from around the world.
Many of the most recent champions have been from Mongolia, and this year’s tournament features two rishiki from Ukraine. While Americans have competed successfully in past tournaments, there are no U.S. rishiki competing in this year’s event in London.
Jordan Pettitt/PA Images/Getty
The nuance of the wrestling competition itself can also be difficult to fully grasp, with 82 winning techniques called kimirate, numerous ranks and divisions and a host of other rules. So to help translate all this for a largely Western audience, in-ear English language commentary is provided at the Royal Albert Hall, alongside video replay screens to describe and explain the bouts, which can sometimes end in just seconds when a competitor is forced out of the ring.
The wrestlers themselves live an incredibly regimented life. They are forbidden from driving cars and, somewhat counterintuitively, eating breakfast, and are normally required to take a long nap after their hefty lunch, to help them pack on the pounds.
The average weight of a rikishi is about 330 pounds, but some tip the scales at 550.
Jordan Pettitt/PA Images/Getty
They have been given some leave during their visit to the British capital to enjoy themselves, however — with organizers likely seeing the value in some degree of publicity.
During the lead-up to the tournament, social media platforms were full of photos and videos of the traditionally kimono-clad wrestlers sightseeing around London.
The Albert Hall will also be graced this week by the presence of two yokozuna, the highest ranking of all sumo wrestlers. The word yokozuna is generally translated as grand champion, but it translates literally to “horizontal rope,” in a reference to the special rope worn around their waists to display their rank.
Krisztian Elek/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty
Once a rishiki is promoted to the rank of yokozuna, they keep it until retirement. In nearly 400 years of professional sumo, only 75 men have attained the vaunted grand champion status. The honor typically requires not only multiple consecutive championship wins, but approval by a dedicated council that judges rishiki on their wrestling skills, but also a range of other personal attributes.
The tournament is due to end on Sunday, when the wrestler with the most victories in the ring will be crowned this year’s champion.
The field is considered wide open this year, but many, especially back at home in Japan, will be hoping for 25-year-old Yokozuna Onasato, the country’s first grand champion in almost a decade, to emerge victorious.
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British Parliament designates Palestine Action a terrorist organization
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Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters in London marked two years since the War in Gaza. However, the British government has seen enough. Haley Ott reports that police have been given sweeping powers to curb repeated demonstrations.
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Opinion | Perilous Times for Optimistic Jews in the U.K.
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Gerry Baker is Editor at Large of The Wall Street Journal. His weekly column for the editorial page, “Free Expression,” appears in The Wall Street Journal each Tuesday. Mr. Baker is also host of “WSJ at Large with Gerry Baker,” a weekly news and current affairs interview show on the Fox Business Network, and the weekly WSJ Opinion podcast “Free Expression” where he speaks with some of the world’s leading writers, influencers and thinkers about a variety of subjects.
Mr. Baker previously served as Editor in Chief of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones from 2013-2018. Prior to that, Mr. Baker was Deputy Editor in Chief of The Wall Street Journal from 2009-2013. He has been a journalist for more than 30 years, writing and broadcasting for some of the world’s most famous news organizations, including his tenure at The Financial Times, The Times of London, and The BBC.
He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, where he graduated in 1983 with a 1st Class Honors Degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
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Gerard Baker
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Manchester synagogue attack victim possibly killed by officer’s gunshot, police say
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London – One of the two people killed in Thursday’s terrorist attack outside a synagogue in the northern English city of Manchester may have died of a gunshot fired by a police officer, the Greater Manchester Police said Friday. Two Jewish men, identified by police as Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz, were killed and three others were seriously wounded during the attack, which happened on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish religious calendar.
Both of the victims were local residents.
A government pathologist advised the police “that he has provisionally determined that one of the deceased victims would appear to have suffered a wound consistent with a gunshot injury,” Stephen Watson, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police force, said in a statement Friday.
“It is currently believed that the suspect, Jihad Al Shamie, was not in possession of a firearm,” Watson said. “It follows therefore, that subject to further forensic examination, this injury may sadly have been sustained as a tragic and unforeseen consequence of the urgently required action taken by my officers to bring this vicious attack to an end.”
Peter Byrne/PA Images/Getty
“We have also been advised by medical professionals that one of the three victims currently receiving treatment in hospital, has also suffered a gunshot wound, which is mercifully not life threatening,” Watson added.
Police officers shot and killed the suspect, who investigators believed to be 35-year-old Jihad Al-Shamie, a British citizen of Syrian descent, following a vehicle and stabbing attack outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue on Thursday morning.
Officers were called to the synagogue at about 9.30 a.m. local time (4:30 a.m. ET) by a member of the public who said he’d seen a car being driven toward members of the public.
The police said Thursday that the attacker drove directly at people outside the synagogue and then attacked people with a knife. The attack happened while a large group of worshippers was inside the synagogue, but the suspect did not manage to enter the building.
In his statement on Friday, Watson said the only shots fired during the incident were fired by police “as they worked to prevent the offender from entering the synagogue and causing further harm to our Jewish community.”
The attacker wore a vest that looked like it could contain explosives, but police later confirmed that there were no viable explosives found.
Peter Byrne/PA Images/Getty
The police said Thursday night that three other individuals had been arrested “on suspicion of commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism” in connection with the attack, whom the force identified only as “two men in their 30s and a woman in her 60s.”
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited the scene of the attack Friday with his wife, speaking with police and other officials outside the synagogue.
In a social media post on Thursday night, Starmer called the attack “a vile terrorist attack that attacked Jews, because they are Jews.”
“Antisemitism is a hatred that is rising, once again. Britain must defeat it, once again. To every Jewish person in this country: I promise that I will do everything in my power to guarantee you the security you deserve,” he said.
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Stabbing outside synagogue in Manchester, England, as Jews mark holiday of Yom Kippur
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London — The Greater Manchester Police told CBS News they were “dealing with a stabbing that’s happened outside a synagogue on the street,” in the northern U.K. city on Thursday. The incident comes on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
The Manchester Evening News, a local newspaper, and CBS News’ partner network BBC News reported that police had said the suspect did not gain access to the building and was shot at the scene by armed officers. It was not immediately clear how many people may have been injured.
“It’s a serious incident I have to say,” Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham told the BBC. “I would say to people to avoid the area, because it’s a serious incident, but at the same time I can give some reassurance that the immediate danger appears to be over.”
Peter Byrne/PA Images/Getty
The local ambulance service said in a statement that a major incident had been declared in the area.
“Following reports of an incident on Middleton Road in Crumpsall, the trust has dispatched resources to the scene,” the ambulance service said. “We are currently assessing the situation and working with other members of the emergency services. Our priority is to ensure people receive the medical help they need as quickly as possible.”
This breaking news story will be updated.
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Why Is Britain’s NHS Praising Cousin Marriage? | RealClearPolitics
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Its guidance wildly minimises the risks of birth defects in order to pander to certain minority groups.
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David Shipley, Spiked
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Contributor: Allies are betraying the U.S. by recognizing a Palestinian state
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Four of America’s nominally closest allies — Britain, Australia, France and Canada — disgraced themselves this week by recognizing a so-called Palestinian state. In so doing, these nations didn’t merely betray their Western civilizational inheritance. They also rewarded terrorism, strengthened the genocidal ambitions of the global jihad and sent a chilling message: The path to international legitimacy runs not through the difficult work of building up a nation-state and engaging in diplomacy, but through mass murder, the weaponization of transnational institutions and the erasure of historical truth.
The Trump administration has already denounced this craven capitulation by our allies. There should be no recognition of an independent Palestinian state at this moment in history. Such a recognition is an abdication not only of basic human decency, but also of national interest and strategic sanity.
The global march toward recognition of an independent Palestinian state ignores decades of brutal facts on the ground as well as the specific tide of blood behind this latest surge. It was less than two years ago — Oct. 7, 2023 — that Hamas launched the most barbaric anti-Jewish pogrom since the Holocaust: 6,000 terrorists poured into Israel, massacring roughly 1,200 innocent people in acts of unconscionable depravity — systematic rape, torture, kidnapping of babies. The terrorists livestreamed their own atrocities and dragged more than 250 hostages back to Gaza’s sprawling subterranean terror dungeons, where dozens remain to this day.
Many gullible liberal elites wish to believe that the radical jihadists of Hamas do not represent the broader Palestinian-Arab population, but that is a lie. Polls consistently show — and anecdotal videos of large street crowds consistently demonstrate — that Hamas and like-minded jihadist groups maintain overwhelming popularity in both Gaza and Judea and Samaria (what the international community refers to as the West Bank). These groups deserve shame, scorn and diplomatic rebuke — not fawning sympathy and United Nations red carpets.
The “government” in Gaza is a theocratic, Iranian-backed terror entity whose founding charter drips with unrepentant Jew-hatred and whose leaders routinely celebrate the wanton slaughter of innocent Israelis as triumphs of “resistance.” Along with the kleptocratic Palestinian Authority dictatorship in Ramallah, this is who, and what, Group of 7 powers like Britain and France have decided to reward with an imprimatur of legitimate statehood.
There is no meaningful “peace partner,” and no “two-state” vision to be realized, amid this horrible reality. There is only a sick cult of violence, lavishly funded from Tehran and eager for widespread international recognition as a stepping stone toward the destruction of Israel — and the broader West for which Israel is a proxy.
For decades, Western leaders maintained a straightforward position: There can be no recognition of a Palestinian state outside of direct negotiations with Israel, full demilitarization and the unqualified acceptance of Israel’s right to exist in secure borders as a distinctly Jewish state. The move at the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state torches that policy, declaring to the world that savagery and maximalist rejectionism are the currency of international legitimacy. By rewarding unilateralism and eschewing direct negotiation, these reckless Western governments have proved us international law skeptics right: The much-ballyhooed “peace process” agreements, such as the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, are not worth the paper they were written on.
In the wake of Oct. 7, these nations condemned the massacre, proclaimed solidarity with Israel and even briefly suspended funding for UNRWA, the U.N. aid group for the Palestinian territories, after agency employees were accused of participating in the attack. Yet, under the relentless drumbeat of anti-Israel activism and diplomatic cowardice, they have now chosen to rehabilitate the Palestinian-Arab nationalist cause — not after the leaders of the cause renounced terrorism, but while its most gruesome crimes remained unpunished, its hostages still languish in concentration camp-like squalor and its leaders still clamor for the annihilation of Israel.
Trump should clarify not only that America will not join in this dangerous, high-stakes charade, but also that there could very well be negative trade or diplomatic repercussions for countries that recognize an independent Palestinian terror state. The reason for such consequences would be simple: Undermining America’s strongest ally in the Middle East while simultaneously creating yet another new terror-friendly Islamist state directly harms the American national interest. There is no American national interest — none, zero — in the creation of a new Palestinian state in the heart of the Holy Land. On the contrary, as the Abraham Accords peace deals of 2020 proved, there is plenty of reason to embolden Israel. Contra liberal elites, it is this bolstering of Israel that fosters genuine regional peace.
The world must know: In the face of evil, America does not flinch, does not equivocate and does not reward those who murder our friends and threaten the Judeo-Christian West. As long as the Jewish state stands on the front lines of civilization, the United States must remain at its side, unwavering, unbowed and unashamed. Basic human decency and the American national interest both require nothing less.
Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. X: @josh_hammer
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Josh Hammer
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