Tag: Cyprus

Read in Arabic on Muwatin A British mercenary used a bayonet to puncture the windpipe of a 20-year-old rebel captured in Oman. The victim, Mohammad al-Adid, was stabbed during a brutal interrogation, which saw him stripped naked, head shaved, legs chained and thumbs tied together behind his back. Al-Adid survived the assault in 1966 and […]

The UK used its bases in Cyprus, which it retained after the island achieved independence in 1960, as key NATO assets despite Cyprus’s declared non-alignment between East and West, it can be revealed.  NATO was established in 1949 ostensibly as a “defensive” Western military alliance against the “threat” posed by the Soviet Union. Greece and […]

The US military is planning to deploy at least 129 airmen to British territory on Cyprus by next year, Declassified can reveal.  The number of US troops on the UK’s so-called Sovereign Base Areas (SBAs), which comprise 3% of Cyprus’s landmass, has long been secret.  “We do not propose to release the numbers of US […]

Driving from the outskirts of Limassol, Cyprus’s second city, into British territory is not a normal border experience.  There are no officials checking passports, no signs, no flags. There is, in fact, nothing that would indicate you were crossing from the Mediterranean island’s sovereign territory to another country’s land. The silent border is probably by […]

The British military has used or threatened to use military force much more in the postwar world than is conventionally remembered or believed. Declassified has documented 83 interventions by the UK armed forces since 1945, in 47 different countries. The most striking of the British uses of force have been the overt invasions or armed […]

The UK military supplied 2,323 spare parts for Tornado fighter jets to an arms company in Saudi Arabia last year, despite a court order against exporting weapons for use in the Yemen war, Declassified UK has found.

Military exercises at British bases in the Mediterranean are causing miscarriages and deaths among farm animals, generating hundreds of compensation claims each year, and threatening protected environmental sites, Declassified UK can reveal.

A fighter jet factory in England providing essential parts for the Saudi air force has not been checked for over three years, missing the government’s own deadlines. Without supplies from this factory, it is likely Saudi Arabia would be unable to continue bombing Yemen during the coronavirus pandemic.

Despite claiming to help tackle the coronavirus pandemic, Britain’s military and arms industry continue to facilitate bombing one of the world’s poorest countries, which is most at risk from Covid-19.

Since air travel was largely locked down to curb the spread of coronavirus, the UK military has airlifted personnel to at least six countries that have banned British travellers or flights — potentially moving thousands of troops.