Bombing Yemen: As British as afternoon tea

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 12 January 2024 The UK military’s latest bombing of Yemen comes on the 60th anniversary of a forgotten British campaign in the country involving brute force and deliberate attacks on civilians, declassified files show. UK air strikes on the Houthis in Yemen – who have dared to challenge Western support […]

UK loaned military adviser to British UN envoy

by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 6 January 2023 The Ministry of Defence seconded a military officer to work with UN special envoy Martin Griffiths while British special forces were involved in the Yemen war, Declassified has discovered. The UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) secretively seconded a military officer to Yemen in 2019, […]

Former UN envoy to Yemen linked to MI6, a party to the war

by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 5 January 2023 Martin Griffiths, a Briton who now runs the United Nations’ humanitarian work, co-founded and advises a private conflict resolution company that “works closely” with MI6. He was until recently the UN special envoy to Yemen. The UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, was […]

Britain’s covert war in Yemen

Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 5 October 2022 The UK’s current war in Yemen is not the first time Britain has contributed to devastating the country. Sixty years ago, a coup in North Yemen prompted UK officials to begin a secret war that also led to tens of thousands of deaths – and, as now, no […]

Four failed wars must finally force the UK to adopt an ethical foreign policy

By Phil Miller and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 25 August 2021 Britain’s regime change operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria have been catastrophic. A key reason is that UK policy has no moral consistency — friends and enemies are interchangeable over time, based purely on short-term pragmatism and rarely on ethical concerns or the […]

Revealed: UK troops ‘secretly operating in Yemen’

By Naser Shaker, Mark Curtis and Phil Miller, Declassified UK, 6 July 2021 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. The British personnel are said to be based at Al-Ghaydah airport in Mahra province of […]

Like billionaire-controlled media, The Guardian misinforms its readers on the UK’s role in world

By Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 26 April 2021 Millions of its readers believe the Guardian offers critical, independent reporting that is different to the right-wing, billionaire-controlled UK media. But its limited coverage of British foreign and security policies gives a misleading picture of what the UK does in the world. The paper is in reality […]

British training of Saudi pilots continues amid bombing of Yemen

Phil Miller, Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 23 September 2020 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. Up to nine Saudi pilots currently training in UK Most recent Saudi aircrew […]

For Sama’a: as Britain resumed arms sales to Saudi Arabia, a deadly airstrike in Yemen

By Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 20 July 2020 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. “At first we suddenly heard an explosion. We saw a light that filled the store and the neighbourhood. We thought […]

REVEALED: Harry Potter, British spies, and the arms corporations penetrating UK schools

by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 3 June 2020 GCHQ, the UK’s largest intelligence agency, is secretively promoting arms companies involved in war crimes to British school children, apparently without the informed consent of parents, it can be revealed. Declassified UK can reveal that a secretive GCHQ programme is allowing officials from British and American arms companies involved […]