Tag: Yemen

The former UN special envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, has close links to the vice-president of a private energy group which has had significant financial interests in the oil sectors of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Declassified can reveal. Griffiths’s private consultancy – Mediation Group International (MGI) – which promoted conflict resolution, was […]

The UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) secretively seconded a military officer to Yemen in 2019, it can be revealed. The officer was attached to the office of the then UN special envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths.   Declassified has shown that Griffiths’ is a founder of, and adviser to, a private conflict resolution company, Inter Mediate, […]

The UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, was until August 2021 the UN special envoy to Yemen, a conflict in which British special forces have been fighting.  Griffiths, 71, has held a number of prominent positions in the field of international peace building. He was previously charged with “mediating an agreement to end the […]

Each year around 1,500 international students have their places at UK universities paid for through Chevening scholarships. The Foreign Office-run scheme, with its £59-million annual budget, claims to champion candidates with ideas for “positive change”. But one applicant has complained that the process is unfair towards candidates from Yemen. The man, who asked to be […]

The brutal war in Yemen, which has raged since 2015, is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. A delicate truce since April has reduced some of the horror, but that deal seems to be breaking down.  It should be time to reflect about who, on all sides of the conflict, including in Britain, might be indicted […]

The UK government has announced that it has “galvanised allies to refer atrocities in Ukraine to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague”, and “expedite an ICC investigation, through state party referral.”  Russia, in its war in Ukraine, is far from exceptional in targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. Sadly, such behaviour is par for […]

“When a country is at war, it is not right to race there.” That was Max Verstappen’s commendable reaction to Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.  The sentiment was shared by almost all his fellow Formula One drivers, who posed for a picture in front of a Ukrainian flag wearing “No War” T-shirts. F1 organisers […]

Gross violations of international law. Missiles raining down on houses. Kleptocrats laundering their ill-gotten gains through London and buying political influence. Aggressive, powerful states attacking a poorer neighbour; backing separatist rebels; illegally occupying its land; dropping cluster bombs and conducting crippling cyber-attacks. Sound familiar? This is what Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have […]

Harry Kane has just scored a late goal, confirming England’s win over Germany in this summer’s Euros. We are sat under a marquee outside a pub near a main road in the nondescript village of Warton, Lancashire.  One of the punters stands up, lifting his Jägerbomb high into the air. “There were ten German bombers […]

Britain exported over £11-billion worth of arms around the world in 2019 but UK ministers claim this trade is properly administered in a mantra that goes like this: “HM Government takes its export control responsibilities very seriously and operates one of the most robust arms export control regimes in the world. We consider all export […]

Britain has a secret detachment of up to 30 troops in Yemen, where they are training Saudi forces amid the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe, Declassified has discovered.

Declassified has discovered a secret UK government committee that held meetings with an arms dealer, former oil executive and ex-spy — but parliament is told there are ‘no records’ of what was discussed.

The scale of British arms sales to Riyadh rises again amid secrecy over a meeting between BAE and trade minister Liam Fox after the Khashoggi killing. Documents show both the UK trade ministry and BAE sought to keep arming Saudi Arabia in the immediate wake of the dissident’s murder.

Journalist Jamal Khashoggi criticised the Saudi regime for its ‘cruel war’ in Yemen and weeks later it murdered him, sparking an international outcry. But while his fiancée frantically searched for his body, Britain’s military quietly sold spare parts to Saudi Arabia’s air force, so it could keep bombing Yemen. And that arms deal is just one in a series of controversial weapons exports uncovered by Declassified UK.

Ahmed Al-Batati, a Lance Corporal in the British army, staged a public protest against British arms sales to Saudi Arabia in August, concerned that “a child was dying every 10 minutes” in Yemen. In his first interview since becoming a civilian, he tells Declassified that others in the army share his view and that he took action because parliament did nothing.

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.

A Saudi air force officer who crashed while undertaking ‘operational tasks’ over Yemen was taught to fly by Britain’s Royal Air Force and arms corporation BAE Systems, the UK government has confirmed.

Britain’s Royal Air Force has trained 25 pilots from Saudi Arabia to fly the powerful Typhoon jet and continues to provide instruction on using missiles involved in devastating attacks on civilians in Yemen.

UK defence minister admits that training of Saudi Typhoon pilots is continuing despite Riyadh using these British-made jets to conduct airstrikes in Yemen, a country on the brink of famine.

The UK’s Royal Air Force is refusing to release video footage that shows fighter pilots from Saudi Arabia conducting air attacks in Britain, as part of a controversial military training scheme which involves 25 civilian airports.

A serving British soldier is being investigated by the Royal Military Police for protesting against arms sales to Saudi Arabia. He accuses the government of having ‘blood on their hands’ and says: ‘I’d rather sleep peacefully in a cell than stay silent for a paycheck.’

Eyewitnesses in Yemen tell Declassified UK’s reporter on the ground about the aftermath of an airstrike that killed a young girl and her grandmother.

Airstrikes in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition killed eight children shortly before and after the UK government claimed there was ‘not a clear risk’ of British weapons being used for war crimes, Declassified has found.

The Saudi-led coalition has received British training on naval tactics that could be used for blockading Yemen, an embargo which UN experts have described as ‘unlawful’. Amnesty International says the new information is ‘deeply concerning’.