Donald Trump has his eyes on Ed Miliband. Keir Starmer’s decision is (Image: Getty)
If we ever needed a reminder of the importance of a secure supply of affordable energy, this is it. There is uproar once again in the Middle East. As the US attacks Iran, the Ayatollahs retaliate by trying to destroy the world energy supply. Their drones have destroyed half of Qatar’s liquefied natural gas exports and oil tankers do not dare to sail through the vital Strait of Hormuz supply route. Such behaviour is causing our energy prices to already skyrocket.
The price of a barrel of Brent crude has increased from $70 last week to $84 today. UK gas prices have more than doubled to 147p per therm. JPMorgan has warned that if the war lasts for more than a few weeks, there will be “catastrophic” losses in energy supplies, which could easily happen. The situation is further proof, if needed, that fossil fuels remain at the heart of the global economy. Any threat to their supplies creates panic.
So what has our Energy Secretary Ed Miliband done?
All new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea was banned. Windfall taxes, the most punitive in the world, impact everything we produce. The result is inevitable. Britain’s drillers are giving up.
While sane, sensible democracies such as Denmark and Norway are progressing with exploration, we are abandoning the fight. At the moment this Labour government is looking somewhat good. donald Trump: There is anger about this.
Read more: ‘The world is on the brink of economic recession – but Britain faces a unique threat.’
Read more: ‘Ed Miliband opened his mouth and utter nonsense came out – said very loudly.’
Yesterday Trump made his position clear. As European wholesale gas prices rose, he urged Sir Keir Starmer to “immediately” restart drilling in the North Sea. When asked what advice he would give the Prime Minister, he fumed: “Open the North Sea immediately. Your energy prices are skyrocketing.”
It’s like holding a loaded gun to Miliband’s head, because he is the one who keeps closing the North Sea. He banned new oil and gas licences and imposed effective marginal tax rates on some companies of more than 100%. That’s a hefty tax rate; even Rachel Reeves hasn’t gone that far. As yet.
As shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho has pointed out, Miliband is destroying 1,000 jobs a month, wasting £50 billion of investment and making the UK less energy secure. Under Labour, for the first time since 1964, no exploration wells were drilled in British waters last year.
In contrast, Norway, which shares the same basin, drilled 49 exploration wells and made 21 new discoveries. Miliband was already destroying jobs and making Britain poorer and weaker. And before this war, it would create the threat of anarchy.
Miliband argues that climate change is also a threat and that creating our own supplies of wind and solar power will boost the UK’s energy security. I’m not going to debunk those arguments. The more energy we can generate from any source, the better.
But as we move towards a green transition, we still need good old-fashioned fossil fuels. Shutting down our own production does nothing for the planet, as we simply buy oil and gas from elsewhere. This means higher emissions and energy prices and lower profits and tax revenues. This is even more labour economic illiteracy.
Miliband talks about energy security, yet it seems he is content to leave us dependent on dubious Chinese technology. As Coutinho points out, every molecule of North Sea gas we produce goes into British pipes. Oil can be sold in the international market. When the price is $40 a barrel, our drillers make profits. Today, it is more than double that. And the more oil we have, the more jobs, taxes, and revenue we will lose.
This strategy was quite risky when the world was relatively at peace. Now we are in the middle of a horrific shooting war. Miliband must change course or go. Donald Trump has handed Keir Starmer a metaphorical gun. Now he will have to use it.
Drone interception led to falling debris, halting play at the Fujairah Challenger event on the UAE’s Gulf coast.
The ATP Challenger tennis tournament in the United Arab Emirates was disrupted following a “security alert” involving Iranian attacks on targets in the Gulf region in response to attacks by the United States and Israel.
Debris from a drone interception on Tuesday caused a fire at an oil field about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the tournament venue on the men’s second-tier global circuit.
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Play at the Fujairah Challenger event in Fujairah, a city on the UAE’s eastern Gulf coast, was suspended in line with established safety protocols before being cancelled for the remainder of the day.
“After consultation with local authorities and security advisors, play has been cancelled for the remainder of the day as a precaution,” the ATP said in a statement.
A video on social media showed two players, Belarusian Daniil Ostapenkov and Japan’s Hayato Matsuoka, struggling for shelter after the public announcement.
“I have finished my match in Fujairah in the second round, but the game is suspended for today,” Ukrainian player Vladislav Orlov said on Instagram. “When I was playing, I heard the sound of jet planes flying here and there. And there’s smoke here next to the mountain, so it’s not very safe here right now.”
The fire broke out about 15 km (9 mi) from the tennis tournament venue in Fujairah. [Altaf Qadri/AP Photo]
Iran has launched missiles and drones at several countries in the Middle East in response to the US-Israeli attacks, which have killed at least 787 people across Iran since Saturday, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society.
Iranian attacks have increasingly targeted oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf, raising concerns of disruption to global energy markets.
They have also drawn condemnation from countries in the region, including the United Arab Emirates, which on Tuesday described Iran’s firing as a “gross aggression and serious violation of national sovereignty and international law.”
According to the country’s Defence Ministry, the UAE has intercepted 186 Iranian missiles since February 28, when US-Israeli attacks on Iran began. statement.
“Of these, 172 missiles were destroyed, 13 fell into the sea and one missile fell on the country’s territory,” the ministry said.
The ministry said 755 Iranian drones were intercepted, while 57 fell on UAE territory.
At least three people have so far been killed in the UAE as a result of the attacks, while 68 others have suffered minor injuries, the ministry said.
“The ministry… reaffirmed that the UAE reserves the full right to respond to this escalation and take all necessary measures to protect its territory, citizens, and residents, thereby safeguarding its sovereignty, security, and stability, as well as its national interests and capabilities.”
Thank you for following along with our live coverage so far today.
The fighting continued in Lebanon, with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, approving a military ground incursion into the southern part of the country and the Israeli military issuing new evacuation orders for dozens of locations in Lebanon. On Tuesday morning, the Israeli air force said it was attacking Tehran and Beirut simultaneously with “extensive strikes” against the Iranian regime and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group in Lebanon that said it launched drones at northern Israel. Israeli airstrikes have killed 52 people and displaced at least 30,000 in Lebanon.
Israeli and US warplanes launcheda fresh wave of strikes across Iran, where the Iranian Red Crescent Society said at least 787 people had been killed since the conflict began.
The International Atomic Energy Agency on Tuesday confirmed that the entrance buildings of Iran’s Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant sustained some damage in the recent strikes.
Casualties and destruction were reported across at least nine countries, with the United Arab Emirates recording a total of 186 missiles and 812 drones sent toward the country since the start of the conflict and two ports in Oman targeted in drone strikes today.
The US embassy inRiyadh, Saudi Arabia, was hit by a drone strike, causing a fire to break out. The strike came as the State Department urged that all US citizens leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries due to risks related to ongoing escalations that have pushed the region into chaos. The 14 countries included in the warning were Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories; Jordan; Kuwait; Lebanon; Oman; Qatar; Saudi Arabia; Syria; the United Arab Emirates; and Yemen.
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Oman’s foreign minister reaffirmed on Tuesday his country’s call for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict between Iran and the US and Israel and a return to responsible regional diplomacy.
“There are off-ramps available; let’s use them,” Badr Albusaidi said in a post on X.
The Gulf country had been mediating talks between Iran and the United States before the Israeli and US airstrikes began on Saturday.
Israel and the US’s war on Iran is just days old, yet it is already unfolding as an environmental catastrophe that will reverberate across the region for years to come.
As the death toll mounts, so too does the devastation from oil spills from damaged supertankers, heavy metal contamination from bombed military sites and leaks of volatile chemicals from damaged fossil energy infrastructure.
A rapid environmental assessment by researchers from the Conflict and Environment Observatory (Ceobs) identified 120 individual incidents of environmental harm in the first 72 hours following the surprise attack on Iran on Saturday night.
“Three days in and we’re already seeing pollution incidents that are placing people and ecosystems at risk of acute and chronic harm, as well as trends that could lead to substantial environmental harm as the war continues,” Ceobs’s report says.
Researchers from Ceobs searched social and media for incidents before undertaking a verification and remote environmental assessment of each.
The most commonly reported targets were military facilities, with the US and Israel attacking missile bases, airfields, weapons depots, and military production facilities across Iran; Iran’s retaliation focused on US air and naval bases in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the UAE. Israel has also carried out dozens of attacks on alleged weapons depots and launch sites in Lebanon.
Attacks on military sites risk causing pollution from fuels, oils, heavy metals, energetic compounds, and PFAS, with fires burning at such locations likely to release toxic contaminants such as dioxins and furans, Ceobs said.
Attacks on missile sites, which the US had identified as a main objective of its assault on Iran, were particularly concerning, according to the report, which noted that “some liquid propellants—such as unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and inhibited red fuming nitric acid used in SCUD-type systems—are highly toxic and have posed serious management and disposal challenges in other conflict settings”.
As a site of major fossil fuel production, the Persian Gulf is already beset with multiple related pollution problems, which the outbreak of war in the region can only exacerbate. Along with extensive damage to Iran’s navy and port facilities, five oil tankers – the MKD Vyom, the Stena Imperative, the Skylight, the Ocean Electra and the Hercules Star – have been hit so far during the conflict; however, whether they have begun spilling oil is not yet known.
A drone strike at Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanurah oil refinery is just one of a number of attacks on facilities for producing, refining, storing and exporting oil. The attack triggered a large fire and smoke plume. Ceobs said, “Such plumes can contain particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and toxic organic compounds—including PAHs and potentially dioxins—posing health risks to downwind communities.”
As well as the local effects on the environment of the Persian Gulf, the war will have consequences for the global environment through changes in greenhouse gas emissions, Ceobs notes.
“Attacks on oil and gas sites will release methane, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, but the curtailment of production … does not necessarily reduce emissions.
“Instead, energy price signals can lead to short-term substitution, as well as more complex downstream energy supply changes over longer timeframes.”
Americans across the Middle East are scrambling to leave the region after the US State Department late on Monday urged US citizens in 14 countries there to depart immediately as the conflict with Iran widens.
Mora Namdar, the US assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, issued the advisory on Monday, urging Americans to “DEPART NOW” from more than a dozen countries, citing “serious safety risks”.
The warning was issued to US citizens in Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
The BBC estimates that there are between 500,000 and 1 million US nationals living in the Middle East. In her message on Monday, Namdar urged Americans to leave “using available commercial transportation, due to serious safety risks” – and instructed those needing help arranging travel to contact the state department. So far, the US has not organised government evacuation flights.
Since Saturday, US and Israeli forces have carried out large-scale strikes across Iran, including an attack on the compound of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a US-Israeli strike on Saturday. Iran has retaliated, including by launching missiles toward Israeli and US military facilities in the region.
The State Department advisory on Monday came as major airlines have cancelled flights to and from the region since Saturday, and several airports have paused flights and scaled back operations, leaving thousands stranded.
Israel has deployed soldiers on the ground in southern Lebanon and is carrying out heavy airstrikes in the country as conflict in the Middle East continues to spread.
It comes after the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah launched missiles and drones toward Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Nosheen Iqbal speaks to the Beirut-based journalist Will Christou…
Trump says he is ‘not happy’ with UK and ‘cuts off’ all trade with Spain over Iran
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he was upset with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has not joined the US-Israeli attack on Iran but did let US forces use UK bases.
“I’m not happy with the UK,” Trump said as he met German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House.
“It’s taken three or four days for us to work out where we can land,” Trump said. “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”
It came as Trump said the United States would cut off all trade with Spain after the European country refused to let the US military use its bases for missions linked to strikes on Iran.
“Spanish has been terrible,” Trump told reporters, adding that he had told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to “cut off all dealings” with Spain.
“We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain,” he added.
Trump claims Iran was going to attack first
US president Donald Trump has claimed that Iran was going to attack before he did, walking back top diplomat Marco Rubio’s assertion that Israel triggered the war.
“I think they were going to attack first, and I didn’t want that to happen. So, if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand,” Trump told reporters as he met German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House.
Trump said that the US and Israel are hitting Iran, “where it is much more appropriate”. However, this comes after the worst mass casualty of the strikes so far was at a girls’ elementary school in southern Iran. The attack killed at least 168 people.
“We’re hitting them very hard,” Trump said today. “They no longer have air protection. They no longer have any detection facilities remaining. And so they’re going to be in for a lot of hurt. These are wicked people.”
U.S. President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz meet in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 3, 2026. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
The outcome and duration of the war in the Middle East may be decided by a grim calculus based on the size of Iran’s drone and missile stocks vs vital air defence munitions held by the US, Israel and Gulf states, analysts and officials say.
Since Saturday, Iran and its proxies have sought to counter the intensive joint US and Israeli offensive with more than 1,000 strikes against targets across almost a dozen countries spread over 1,200 miles. With its antiquated air force unable to compete with those of Israel and the US, Tehran has relied on its arsenal of missiles and drones.
The geographical extent of Iran’s retaliatory attacks has made the conflict the widest in the Middle East since the Second World War. Israeli and US aircraft and missiles have struck hundreds of sites across Iran, without losing a plane to hostile fire.
The US and Israel are seeking to destroy as much of Iran’s missile stockpile and infrastructure as possible, targeting launchers, stores and personnel.
Stacie Pettyjohn, the director of the defence programme at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, said the conflict had become “a bit of a salvo competition”, a military strategic concept describing an exchange of simultaneous volleys of large numbers of precision-guided weapons between opposing forces.
“The question is who has the deeper magazines of key weapons, and the big unknown is how deep Iran’s inventories are,” Pettyjohn said.
Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s death is “historically significant” but will not “automatically” lead to the fall of the Iranian system, the widow of the country’s last shah told AFP in an interview Tuesday.
“The passing of a man – however central he may be to the architecture of power – does not automatically mean the end of a system,” said Farah Pahlavi, three days after US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic republic killed Khamenei.
“What will be decisive,” said the 87-year-old, is “the ability of the Iranian people to unite around a peaceful, orderly and sovereign transition to a state governed by the rule of law,” which she added her son Reza Pahlavi “is in the process of preparing.” ”.
The widow, who has lived in exile in Paris since being driven out of Iran with her husband in the 1979 revolution, urged the international community to respect the right of people in Iran to choose their path forward.
“What I want is for the international community to clearly support the fundamental rights of Iranians: the right to choose their leaders, to express themselves freely, and to live in dignity and prosperity,” she said.
“The support must go to the people, not to geopolitical calculations.”
Pahlavi also called on the Iranian authorities “to show restraint and avoid any bloodshed”.
Israel struck a headquarters belonging to the Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya, an ally of Hamas and Hezbollah, in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on Tuesday, state media reported.
“The Israeli enemy carried out an air raid a short while ago, targeting a headquarters of the Jamaa Islamiya” in the coastal city, state media said.
The group had previously been the target of Israeli strikes in Lebanon after claiming responsibility for rocket launches toward Israel during the war between Israel and Hezbollah that began in October 2023.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday offered US allies in the Middle East a swap of some of their air defence missiles in exchange for Kyiv’s vaunted drone interceptors to better protect them from Iranian drone attacks.
The Israeli and US strikes on Iran have triggered retaliatory Iranian strikes – including with drones – across the region.
Russia has been using Iranian-designed Shahed drones throughout its four-year invasion of Ukraine, and Kyiv has developed a range of cheap and effective drone interceptors – aerial crafts designed to hit incoming attack drones mid-air – that it says are world-leading, AFP reported.
At the same time, Ukraine is struggling with a shortage of PAC-3 air defence missiles – expensive ammunition fired at incoming Russian missiles to defend Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure.
“The number one issue is how to protect their skies. We ourselves live with this question,” Zelenskyy said.
“Let’s speak about weapons that we’re short of: PAC-3 missiles – if they give them to us, we will give them interceptors,” he added.
With 30 people inside the neighbourhood bomb shelter on Sunday afternoon and sirens wailing outside, Oren Katz went to close the reinforced door.
It was a typical act of kindness for the father of four, but it cost him his life. An Iranian missile struck the shelter directly as he reached the entrance.
“Even when you were in trouble, you would say ‘give’, and that giving cost you your life,” his wife, Samadi, said in a tribute at his funeral. “You went upstairs to close the shelter and it took a heavy toll. I can’t digest it,” the Ynet news site quoted her saying.
Katz was one of nine victims, four of them teenage children, killed in the deadliest attack Israel has sustained since it joined the US in attacking Iran on Saturday.
The Biton family mourned the loss of three children: 13-year-old Sarah, 15-year-old Avigail, and their 16-year-old brother Yaakov, who left behind their parents and one sibling. The other boy killed was 16-year-old Gabriel Baruch Revah, Israeli media reported.
The force of the explosion entirely destroyed a synagogue that had stood over the shelter and left the thick, protective roof caved in. Astonishingly much of the structure withstood the force of the blast, despite its age and the intensity of the strike, said an officer who led the search and rescue mission.
“Even with the very severe impact that was here, and the price that was paid in this attack, the vast majority of people who were in the bomb shelter came out of it alive,” Lt Col Oded Revivi said at the site.
“In the bomb shelter there were over 30 people; two are dead, one is injured and 28 people came out alive,” said Revivi, adding that seven people were killed outside the shelter.
On Tuesday, strikes targeted Mehrabad, one of Iran’s two airports that mainly handles domestic flights.
The Mehr news agency published photos showing a cloud of grey smoke rising into the sky behind what appeared to be a runway.
“The American-Zionist terrorists attacked the area around the Mehrabad airport” in the capital’s west, it said.
The elementary school sent an urgent message about her son.
“The war has begun,” he was told. Come pick him up.
The mother, who declined to be identified, said she had just dropped the boy off and couldn’t leave immediately because, as a midwife, she had patients to attend to. Then the earth shook. And she ran away.
It’s too late. Three air strikes hit the Shajareh Taybeh primary school in Minab, killing 168 people, according to the city’s mayor. Many of them were children. One of them was his son.
“By the time we arrived, the entire school had collapsed on top of the children,” the mother told NBC News. “People were pulling the arms and legs of children. People were taking out severed heads.”
The site of an attack on a girls’ school in Minab, in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, on Saturday. Ali Najafi/AFP – Getty Images
Four days later, grief and anger grew over the deaths at the school, which has become a point of protest against the US and Israeli attacks. There is also anger and uncertainty over the fact that no one has accepted responsibility for the most publicised civilian casualties since the beginning of the war.
Videos and images published by state media showed large crowds gathered to bury the children on Tuesday. There is a mass burial consisting of rows and rows of what appear to be individual graves dug side by side.
The US and Israel have since hit thousands of targets inside the country, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and about 800 others. , according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society.
Tehran is retaliating, attacking Israel and several other countries in the region allied with the US, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain. Those killed in the retaliatory strike included six US service members, as well as 11 people in Israel, while dozens of people have been killed in Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Smoke rising from a girls’ primary school in Minab after the airstrike. Alex Mita/IRIB TV via AFP – Getty Images
Asked about the deaths on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the U.S. military “would never intentionally target a school,” adding that the Defence Department would “investigate whether this was our attack.”
Over the weekend, US Central Command, or CentCom, said it was looking into reports of civilian deaths. The Israeli military has so far declined to comment.
According to satellite footage, the school appeared to be located near an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) site, which British broadcaster BBC News reported had been targeted previously.
Civilians and rescue workers look through the debris after an attack on a school in Minab, Iran, on Saturday. Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News/Wana/via Reuters
Both the MinB official and the mother who spoke to NBC News said the school facility was built on an IRGC base. He stated that the base shut down approximately 15 years ago, leading to the relocation of all military personnel, while the school continued to operate.
Satellite images from 2011 show the building was once part of the same complex before it was fenced.
Result after the strike on Saturday. Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News via Reuters
Iran’s education ministry spokesman Ali Farhadi said on Sunday that there had been three attacks on the school, which he said had 264 students.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday that the school was “bombed in broad daylight, when it was packed with young students.”
The increase in gas prices in the last 48 hours is without precedent.
Even in the chaotic early weeks of the Ukraine war in 2022, the price of gas never doubled. But that is exactly what has happened to wholesale methane prices in the UK.
And since gas prices are arguably the most important price in the UK – the linchpin of our electricity network, setting electricity prices, underpinning industrial production and the manufacture of chemicals, and indirectly factoring into the price of food and other miscellaneous goods – the drop is a huge consequence.
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Iranian drones are bombing oil and gas facilities in the Gulf, causing a sharp increase in gas prices. It seems no one knows how long this will last, but that is the most important of all questions.
The longer this scenario goes on, the more gas prices are likely to rise. Although the pace of increase over the past 48 hours has been faster than any other comparable period in history, the absolute level of gas prices is much lower than at the peak of the Ukraine war in 2022. Again, given that an unprecedented energy price shock swept across Europe, not to mention the forced deindustrialisation of the continent that continues today, this is far from reassuring.
Are energy prices going to rise again?
The longer this continues, the greater the impact will be on household bills in the UK, which are fixed until June (and benefited from a £150 rebate for one measure in the last budget) but are due to reflect wholesale prices until July.
This is why the events happening in and around Iran remain important for the economy of this country.
The latest big forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility doesn’t leave much room for interpretation. Judging from this and Rachel Reeves’ presence in the House of Commons today, one might assume that Britain has now overcome the cost-of-living problems it has faced for the last four or five years. This outlook paints a picture of inflation falling to 2% for an extended period.
The Chancellor opened his spring forecast
But the most important data point is on page 109 of the spring forecast. The OBR’s latest forecasts were based on the gas price expectations found in Table A.3. They are more or less flat. After all, these were the prevailing expectations for energy prices when the report was finalised last week.
Britain’s bills cannot escape the forces of Iran war
But since then, as you know, gas prices have skyrocketed. So, essentially, most of the report’s key assumptions about inflation are not worth the paper they are written on.
It is still too early to assess what effect the report will have on the UK economy. Gas prices could potentially decrease in the coming weeks. But equally, it is also possible that they may go even higher. And if they do, the implications for Britain barely recovering from the last energy price shock will be deep and somewhat serious.
Forget science fiction. The era of AI in warfare has arrived.
Israel uses AI systems in Gaza. These systems are capable of identifying potential targets and aiding in the prioritisation of operations.
The United States military reportedly used Anthropic’s model, Cloud, which is an AI system designed for various applications, during its operation to kidnap Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela.
Even after this incident, Anthropic encountered difficulties with the US administration over the appropriate use of AI in warfare.
while the US military clearly used the cloud in its attack on Iran.
Iran latest: Trump criticizes Starmer over UK stance
Experts suggest that AI-powered systems could potentially target the missiles currently flying over Tehran.
Craig Jones, senior lecturer in political geography at Newcastle University, says, “AI is changing the nature of modern warfare in the 21st century. Its impact is difficult to underestimate.”
“This is a potentially catastrophic scenario
Terrible or not, it seems there is no going back. If you want to understand how much importance the US military places on AI, a good place to start is a memo sent to all senior military leaders earlier this year by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who calls himself Secretary of War.
“I direct the War Department to accelerate America’s military AI dominance by becoming an “AI-first” fighting force across all components from front to rear,” Mr. Hegseth wrote.
image: The US might be already using AI to inform its missile strikes. Photo: AP/Centcom
Yet the scenario in question is not the one that first comes to mind.
Yes, autonomy is increasing in some areas. In Ukraine, for example, there are drones that are capable of continuing missions even after losing contact with the human operator.
But we are not at the stage of autonomous killer robots stalking across the battlefield.
“We are not in the Terminator era yet,” says David Leslie, a professor of ethics, technology, and society at Queen Mary University in London.
The systems into which AI is being embedded—known in military jargon as “decision support systems”—are advisors who flag targets, rank threats, and suggest priorities.
AI systems can take satellite imagery, intercepted communications, logistics data, and social media streams—thousands or even hundreds of thousands of inputs— and pull together surface patterns far faster than any human team.
The concept is that they assist in piercing the murkiness of war, enabling commanders to concentrate resources on the most crucial areas, potentially outperforming fatigued, overburdened, and stressed human soldiers in accuracy.
This means they are not just a tool, says Dr Jones, but a new way of making decisions.
“AI, as we see it in our lives, is like an infrastructure,” he says. “It’s built into the system.”
“We can aggregate that surveillance that we’ve been doing for a few years.
“But now AI gives us the stability to act on that, to kill the leader of Iran, to take out serious adversaries and enemies, and to find them in ways that might not have been possible before.”
‘A very motivating tool’
Professor Leslie agrees that the new systems are extremely capable from a military perspective.
“The race to speed is driving this acceleration,” he says. “Speeding up decision-making cycles gives the military a lethality advantage.”
One crucial aspect of decision support systems is their ability to function without the need for human intervention. A human being does. This fact has been a central assurance in the debate about military AI. A human is always present in the process.
As OpenAI, the company that makes ChatGPT, announced a partnership to supply AI to the Pentagon, it stated: “We have approved forward-deployed OpenAI engineers to help the government, as well as security and alignment researchers in the loop.”
OpenAI has also stressed that it has reached an agreement with the Pentagon that its technology will not be used in ways that cross three “red lines”: mass domestic surveillance, direct autonomous weapons systems, and high-risk automated decisions.
But even with a human in the loop, a question remains.
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When you’re fighting a war, can humans really scrutinise every decision the AI makes? In situations where time is limited and information is incomplete, how should we interpret “human observation”?
Dr Jones asserts that humans are technologically informed.
“In my opinion, that doesn’t mean they are empowered to make effective decisions and have enough information to actually monitor what happened. AI… is a very persuasive tool for people making decisions.”
Or, as Professor Leslie puts it, “We’re really facing a potentially huge danger of rubber stamping, where, because of the speed, you don’t have active, significant human participation to assess the recommendations that are being given by these systems.”
And then there’s the question of AI’s own mistakes.
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Testing by Sky News found that neither Claude nor ChatGPT could tell how many legs a chicken had if the chicken did not look as expected.
Furthermore, the AI insisted that it was right, even when it was clearly wrong.
The example comes from a paper showing dozens of examples of similar failures. “This is not the only example of animal legs,” said lead author Anh Vo.
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“The problem is common across all types of data and functions,” Vo said.
This is because AI doesn’t actually see the world in a human sense—it just guesses what’s most likely to happen based on past data.
Most of the time, that kind of statistical reasoning is surprisingly effective. The world is so predictable that probabilities work out.
But some environments are, by their very nature, unpredictable and high-risk.
We are testing the limits of this technology in more adverse conditions than we could ever imagine.
San Jose, Costa Rica — Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines said on Tuesday that his government had not sanctioned the US for a recent attack on an alleged drug boat in local waters that killed three people.
Prime Minister godwin friday Said in a press conference
Prime Minister godwin friday Said in a press conference that his administration learned about the deadly February 13 strike Through social media and online reports.
“There has been no direct communication with us regarding the attacks,” he said, adding that Caribbean leaders are concerned. “It was agreed that this is a serious matter because of the potential danger it poses to our people going about their normal business. … People travelling by water want to know they are safe.”
The US military said three people were killed in the attacks but did not confirm their identities.
A relative of a boat captain recently from St Lucia told the associated press They believe 35-year-old Ricky Joseph, a father of four, died in the attack, as he is missing and was taken away in a boat, as shown in photos posted on social media after the attack.
Caribbean leaders recently met to talk among themselves about the safety and security concerns of US drone strikes “in our waters”, it said Friday.
He said Caribbean leaders who met for a regional summit in St Kitts last week, which US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended, “agreed that this is a serious matter that will affect us all” and that they would raise it with US officials.
The attacks began in early September and have killed at least 151 people as the administration of US President Donald Trump targets what it calls “narco terrorists” in small vessels.
Caribbean officials also discussed with Rubio a request to use St Vincent and other Caribbean countries as transit points for migrants stopped at the U.S. They will remain at the southern border until they can be returned to their countries of origin, it said Friday.
“I stressed that for any such transit programme to go forward…for a country of our size, with our borders, it must be clearly defined, transparent and manageable,” he said on Friday.
He said he requested data about the number of people in transit and the specific time frame spent at transit points because he questioned what the legal status of such migrants would be in the Caribbean and what would happen if they could not be sent back.
“The objective is to have a coordinated approach,” Friday said, noting that there is free movement of people within the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States.
Friday, said Caribbean leaders at last week’s summit. Also agreed to send humanitarian aid to Cuba “To help alleviate the current serious situation.”
A man has been convicted of murder and manslaughter after giving a semi-automatic, assault-style rifle to his teenage son, who is accused of using it to kill two high school students and two teachers.
Collin Grey was found guilty of second-degree murder in the 2024 shooting deaths at Apalachee High School in Winder, northeast Atlanta, in the deaths of two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo.
He was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of teacher Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimi, 53. Another teacher and eight other students were injured in the mass shooting, which has been blamed on Mr Grey’s teenage son, Colt.
The teen’s mother, Marci Grey, testified that she had urged his father to take all the guns and lock them inside his truck so that her son, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, could not reach them.
image: Colin Grey is one of several parents being sued over the shootings. Photo: AP
The couple had separated in the months before the shooting.
Grey is one of several parents whose children were prosecuted after being charged in deadly shootings across the US.
Prosecutors said he gave his son access to the gun and ammunition “after receiving adequate warning that the Colt Grey would cause harm and endanger the physical safety of another.”
The father was also convicted of several counts of negligent conduct and cruelty toward children.
His son has been charged with a total of 55 cases, including murder.
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The teen has pleaded not guilty at a hearing to be held in mid-March.
Investigators allege he carefully planned the September 4 attack on the school of 1,900 students two years ago.
They reported that he boarded a school bus with a semiautomatic, assault-style rifle in his book bag, its barrel sticking out and wrapped in poster board.
After leaving his second-period class, he allegedly emerged from the bathroom with the weapon and shot people in the classroom and hallway.
A prosecutor said Colin Grey had given him a gun as a Christmas gift and allowed his son to have access to the gun, despite knowing that the boy’s mental health had deteriorated.
European officials have cautioned citizens to exercise “vigilance” due to concerns that Iran might activate terrorist sleeper cells, potentially causing chaos across the continent.
Iran’s lead in targeted bombings ended (Image: AP)
Fears are growing that Iran could attack targets inside Europe, amid warnings that sleeper cells could be active across the continent to spread chaos.
Tehran’s remaining leadership has fired missiles and drones wildly at US allies after Donald Trump and his Israeli counterpart approved devastating air strikes on Iran on Saturday morning. The barrage wiped out Iran’s leadership, including the assassination of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran responded by firing missiles and drones at Arab states, Israel and even the island of Cyprus, which is home to British air bases. Iran’s arsenal includes the Khorramshahr 4 missile. The missile has a range of 1,242 miles to 1,864 miles and can carry a destructive warhead.
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Trump previously claimed that Iran’s nuclear weapons program has been “destroyed” (Image: Kyle Mazza/Shutterstock)
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The missiles could reach Rome, Copenhagen, Budapest and Athens. Dr Siddharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told The Daily Mail that the missile was “derivative” of missiles used by North Korea.
He said, “It was always anticipated that if the Iranians ever developed a nuclear weapon, this would be the delivery vehicle for a nuclear weapon. ” The Khorramshahr-4 missile can be launched in a volley and, if used, could reach large areas of Europe, including Greece, Italy, Germany, Poland and Denmark.
Tehran was targeted in the attacks (Image: AP)
Trump claimed last year that Iran’s nuclear weapons programme had been “destroyed” but raised fears the country could develop weapons of mass destruction if left alone. The Shahid suicide drone, with a range of 1,242 miles, can even reach parts of Europe – a range of short-range missiles are already reaching Middle East countries, including Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Although drones are slower than missiles, they are easier to launch in large numbers and can increase pressure on targeted countries if used in repeated waves to weaken air defences. Dr Kaushal warned that as the US and Israel continue to attack Iran’s senior defence leadership, the country’s ‘mosaic warfare’ doctrine could make it more difficult to predict next steps.
Iran’s ‘Mosaic War’ Theory May Make It Hard to Predict Their Next Moves
“Since the 2000s, the Iranian concept of the so-called ‘Mosaic War’ [has been] built around the idea that their leadership could be paralysed in a war with the United States, and so they would have to transfer control to the command level to ensure that their forces could continue to function,” he said. The basic concept is that people at lower levels [who] may have been given standard…rules of engagement in peacetime are considered more authoritative if they cannot communicate with higher command. The question is how much authority do they now have to do things that could escalate the war [ordinarily] controlled?”
The joint US-Israeli airstrikes have also raised fears that Iran could use sleeper terror cells to attack targets across Europe. Sleeper cells usually infiltrate a country and remain hidden until they become active to carry out terrorist attacks.
Iran is already firing short-range missiles at its Middle Eastern neighbours.
Mark Heinrichmann, a member of the German parliament’s intelligence committee, warned yesterday that the attacks would not be limited to the Middle East. Speaking to local outlets, he said, “Tensions in the Middle East do not only affect the region.
“The Iranian regime has repeatedly demonstrated in the past that it has spread its terror beyond its borders. Iranian sleeper cells in Europe cannot be ruled out as a part of Tehran’s retaliation strategy. Vigilance is today’s order.”
It appears the war with Iran is unpopular among many Americans, and only one in four agrees with Trump’s decision to attack. In contrast, 43 per cent disapproved and 29 per cent said they were not sure, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Trump says he is ‘very sad’ that UK-US relations ‘are not what they used to be’
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. US President Donald Trump has said he is “very sad” to see that UK-US relations are “not what they were” after criticising Keir Starmer for taking “too long” to allow US forces to use his airbase to attack Iran.
In a telephone interview with Harry Cole, political editor of The Sun, Trump said:
It really is a different world. This is a completely different kind of relationship from what we have had with your country before.
It’s heartbreaking to see that the relationship is clearly not what it was before.
Speaking to The Sun from the White House on Monday evening, Trump compared Starmer’s actions to France’s support for the attacks and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s support for them.
He said, “That hasn’t been helpful. I never thought I’d see that. I never thought I’d see that from the UK. We love the UK.”
Donald Trump and Keir Starmer hold hands as they hold a press conference at Checkers at the end of a state visit to Aylesbury, England, last September. Photograph: Leon Neal/Reuters
In a significant and rare break from Washington on foreign policy, Starmer said on Monday the UK does not believe in “regime change from the sky” as he defended his decision not to allow the use of UK bases for the initial wave of attacks.
But the prime minister said the situation changed on Sunday as Iran’s “outrageous” response posed a threat to the British people and Britain’s allies.
He has now agreed to a US request to use British military bases for “defensive” strikes on Iranian missile sites.
Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, accused the government of being “too scared” to take a tough stance against Iran.
We will focus primarily today on the UK’s political response to the rapid developments in the Israel-US war on Iran, as conflict escalates across the region with Israeli forces launching new attacks on Tehran and Beirut.
You can follow our Business Live blog to see the market reaction as the war pushed oil and gas prices higher after Iran expanded its retaliatory attacks on US targets in the Gulf region.
Minister says Britain is not going to get involved in ‘wider conflict in the Middle East’
Asked whether the so-called “special relationship” had changed, Darren Jones told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
UK-US relations are important. This has been the case for a long time and will continue to be so, and we are currently working collaboratively on defensive action to protect British citizens in the Middle East.
I think it’s the President’s frustration The way he expressed it is that we were not involved in the initial American and Israeli attacks in Iran But as the Prime Minister said in the House of Commons yesterday, we will only involve British armed forces when it is in the British interest. a clear plan and on one legal basis.
Now we are doing this for defensive action, but we are not going to get involved in any broader conflict in the Middle East.
Asked whether the initial attacks were lawful, he said, “Okay, this is a question for Americans and the US administration.”
Darren Jones has said that, despite criticism from Donald Trump, Britain is still working together with America.
In his interview with The Sun last night, Donald Trump also suggested that Keir Starmer was “baiting” Muslim voters in formulating his policy regarding Iran, a baseless claim that the Prime Minister’s chief secretary described as unfounded. Darren Jones was asked about on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning.
Jones said:
It’s just, it’s not right. The UK will prioritise its citizens, regardless of their religion or location.
I think the public will rightly say that they do not want to get involved in a widespread war in the Middle East, but they will expect us to do everything possible to protect British citizens.
Keir Starmer has often been praised in the past for his ability to maintain relations with the volatile US president, but in the House of Commons on Monday the prime minister expressed scepticism about US actions in Tehran. legality.
“We all remember the mistakes of Iraq, and we’ve learned those lessons. Any UK action must always have a legitimate basis and a pragmatically considered plan,” he said. “That’s the principle I applied to the decisions I took over the weekend.”
Speaking in the Commons on Monday, Starmer said Britain was deploying aircraft and allowing the use of bases for defensive purposes as Iran launched attacks on Britain’s allies in the region in retaliation.
Keir Starmer defends decision not to engage in US strikes after Trump criticism – video
He said the RAF had intercepted an Iranian drone attack headed toward a coalition base in Iraq, where British forces were stationed. Two drones were also fired at the British base in Cyprus, RAF Akrotiri, which Starmer said was launched before Sunday night’s statement on US use of UK bases.
The UK and US are expected to allow the use of RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia to bomb Iran’s “missile cities” in the Chagos Islands, sites where high-speed ballistic missiles, Iran’s most dangerous weapons, are stored and from which they can be launched.
You can read more from the Guardian’s deputy political editor, Jessica Elgot, here:
Trump says he is ‘very sad’ that UK-US relations ‘are not what they used to be’
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. US President Donald Trump has said he is “very sad” to see that UK-US relations are “not what they were” after criticising Keir Starmer for taking “too long” to allow US forces to use his airbase to attack Iran.
In a telephone interview with Harry Cole, political editor of The Sun, Trump said:
It really is a different world. This is a completely different kind of relationship from what we have had with your country before.
It’s heartbreaking to see that the relationship is clearly not what it was before.
Speaking to The Sun from the White House on Monday evening, Trump compared Starmer’s actions to France’s support for the attacks and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s support for them.
He said, “That hasn’t been helpful. I never thought I’d see that. I never thought I’d see that from the UK. We love the UK.”
Donald Trump and Keir Starmer hold hands as they hold a press conference at Checkers at the end of a state visit to Aylesbury, England, last September. Photograph: Leon Neal/Reuters
In a significant and rare break from Washington on foreign policy, Starmer said on Monday the UK does not believe in “regime change from the sky” as he defended his decision not to allow the use of UK bases for the initial wave of attacks.
But the prime minister said the situation changed on Sunday as Iran’s “outrageous” response posed a threat to the British people and Britain’s allies.
He has now agreed to a US request to use British military bases for “defensive” strikes on Iranian missile sites.
Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, accused the government of being “too scared” to take a tough stance against Iran.
We will focus primarily today on the UK’s political response to the rapid developments in the Israel-US war on Iran, as conflict escalates across the region with Israeli forces launching new attacks on Tehran and Beirut.
