Tag: Somalia

UK diplomats will not declassify their assessment of who killed pro-Somalia activists at a demonstration in the bitterly contested city of Las Anod over the New Year. The censorship decision was made in response to a freedom of information request by Declassified UK. Las Anod, which is home to around a quarter of a million […]

It’s a familiar story. Lines on the map drawn by European colonisers carved up communities across Asia and Africa, putting minorities at the mercy of larger ethnic or religious groups. From India to Iraq, Sudan to Cameroon, millions have died in conflicts caused by arbitrary borders imposed on countries by imperial powers.  The latest example […]

Since being sacked from Boris Johnson’s cabinet over the exam grades fiasco, former education secretary Sir Gavin Williamson has largely faded from the public eye. The Conservative MP for South Staffordshire has little credibility left, having already blown his second chance.  Theresa May had earlier dismissed Williamson as her defence secretary over an alleged leak […]

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 Foreign Office has spent around £24 million since 2013 assisting an armed police squad in Somalia whose counter-terrorism operations are shrouded in secrecy. Funding for Somalia’s Goodir Unit is intended to stop attacks by Al Shabab, the Al Qaeda-linked militant group in East Africa that claims to have recruited British Somalis from London, […]

The United Kingdom is fighting at least seven covert wars