Two further terror arrests after vandalism of planes at RAF base
Counter Terrorism Policing South East said two men aged 22 and 24, both from London, were taken into police custody after the incident at RAF Brize Norton on June 20.
They are accused of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, contrary to Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
On Friday, a woman, aged 29, of no fixed address, and two men, aged 36 and 24, from London, were also arrested accused of the same offence.
A 41-year-old woman, of no fixed address, was also arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender, police said.
Palestine Action previously posted footage online showing people inside the Oxfordshire base, with one person appearing to ride an electric scooter up to an Airbus Voyager air-to-air refuelling tanker, before spray-painting into its jet engine.
The Home Secretary Yvette Cooper made the decision to proscribe Palestine Action following the incident, with the arrests coming just days before the proscription is set to come into force.
Support for the group will become a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison when the ban comes into effect as soon as next Friday.
Palestine Action has staged demonstrations that have included spraying the London offices of Allianz Insurance with red paint and vandalising US President Donald Trump's Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire.
As she announced plans for Palestine Action's proscription, Ms Cooper said the group's methods have become 'more aggressive', with its members showing 'willingness to use violence'.
At the time of the incident, the group said it had 'directly intervened in the genocide and prevented crimes against the Palestinian people' by 'decommissioning two military planes'.
Palestine Action said Thursday's arrests 'further demonstrates that proscription is not about enabling prosecutions under terrorism laws – it's about cracking down on non-violent protests which disrupt the flow of arms to Israel during its genocide in Palestine'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Herald Scotland
36 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
'I could do it': Eric Trump ponders a future run for president
"You know, if the answer was yes, I think the political path would be an easy one, meaning, I think I could do it," he added. "And by the way, I think other members of our family could do it too." More: Michelle Obama won't run for office, but her podcast may guide Democrats Eric Trump, 41, currently serves as co-executive vice-president of the Trump Organization, a sprawling private real estate company that launched a mobile cell service in June. He runs the business with his brother, Donald Trump, Jr., who stated in May that he "maybe one day" would seek the White House, too. Donald Trump Jr., 47, has been at the forefront of his father's political operation for years and his endorsement is coveted by conservative candidates, while Eric Trump, who is married to former RNC co-chair Lara Trump, has in comparison largely avoided the political fray and focused most of his energies on the business side. Donald Trump was a rumored candidate for decades The two siblings tossing around the idea of following in their father's footsteps is familiar territory for the family going back decades. Donald Trump's name was first kicked around as a presidential candidate ahead of the 1988 election with the help of a New Hampshire-based woodworker and political activist named Mike Dundar, who started a "Draft Trump for President" movement because he wasn't satisfied with the Republican contenders. Years later, Donald Trump formed an exploratory committee first as a Democrat and later under the Reform Party banner as a potential candidate in the 2000 election. He withdrew nine days before the contest.
The Herald Scotland
36 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Trump's aggressive immigration crackdown is getting ICE agents hurt
White House officials say there's been a 500% increase in assaults on agents, as President Donald Trump's massive deportation campaign ramps up. Administration officials say bold tactics are needed to repel what they call an "invasion" of immigrants. But policing experts say the aggressive approach is provoking unnecessarily dangerous encounters. In a recent incident in Nebraska, a female ICE agent was thrown to the ground and choked by an accused Tren de Aragua gang member who said he was formerly a Venezuelan soldier, according to court documents. The suspect escaped and was later captured with the help of local police. Bystander videos have captured agents wrestling suspects to the ground on crowded streets and chasing them through farm fields. One widely circulated video showed an agent grabbing a U.S. citizen by the neck in a Walmart parking lot as he resisted being taken; federal prosecutors have charged the man with assault after he allegedly punched an agent. "Just this week, an ICE officer was dragged 50 yards by a car while arresting an illegal alien sex offender," Tricia McLaughlin, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary, told USA TODAY. "Every day the men and women of ICE put their lives on the line to protect and defend the lives of American citizens." Trump, who has promised to deport 1 million immigrants this year, ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents "to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest mass deportation program in history." In a June 15 social media post, he also said: "Every day, the brave men and women of ICE are subjected to violence, harassment and even threats from radical Democrat politicians, but nothing will stop us from executing our mission, and fulfilling our mandate to the American people." Art Del Cueto, the vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, said the union's 16,000 members welcome Trump's tough new approach to immigration enforcement. Detainees are increasingly fighting back, he said, because they know there's no escape: "That's why you're seeing attacks on agents." 'It's not about public safety anymore' But there's growing pushback from the public. Recent immigration sweeps in the Los Angeles area sparked widespread protests and small riots downtown, as people threw rocks at law enforcement and set patrol vehicles on fire, and federal agents responded with tear gas and pepper spray. In some cases, federal agents are getting into shoving matches with crowds trying to film or stop what they consider to be overzealous detentions, especially when the masked agents refuse to identify themselves. Policing experts say ICE agents are exacerbating tense situations with practices that many American police departments have largely disavowed. While there's little objection to detaining violent criminals, masked agents descending upon Home Depot parking lots to arrest day laborers and food vendors - most with no criminal record - sparks panic. "The aggressive police tactics being employed by the federal government are causing the issue," said longtime police supervisor Diane Goldstein, who now directs the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, which has spent decades working to develop trust between the public and police. "Their direction and their leadership is directly putting them in a horrific situation," she said. The ICE tactics on display are a dramatic departure from how cautiously ICE agents previously worked, said Jason Houser, a former Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism official. Houser is an Afghanistan combat veteran who was ICE chief of staff during the Biden administration. Previously, ICE agents prioritized serious criminal offenders for arrest, Houser said. A team of agents might work for days or weeks to surveil a single subject before making an arrest carefully timed to minimize risks to the public and to agents themselves. ICE agents are trained to "think about prioritization of public safety, risk and removability," he added. Internal Justice Department training programs stress that police agencies should focus on de-escalation whenever possible and avoid making arrests in public areas, especially when there's no imminent threat to public safety. "Now we have political quotas: 'Give me 3,000 arrests' (per day). And all gloves are off," Houser said. "It's not about public safety any more." Before Trump, assaults were on the decline An increase in assaults on officers and agents this year would reverse a three-year trend of declining incidents, according to internal Department of Homeland Security statistics. Despite millions of daily interactions with the public, it was rare for ICE, customs officers and Border Patrol agents to get attacked on the job. The agency logged 363 assault incidents in fiscal 2024, down from 474 incidents in fiscal 2023 and 524 in fiscal 2022, according to DHS data. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which includes both customs officers and Border Patrol agents, has 45,000 law enforcement personnel and is the nation's largest law enforcement agency. Additionally, ICE has roughly 6,200 deportation agents on staff. White House officials declined to answer USA TODAY's questions about the numbers underlying the 500% increase in assaults, including the total number of injuries and their severity. It's also unclear how many additional federal agents have so far been re-assigned to immigration enforcement. Masked agents refusing to identify themselves In Huntington Park, Calif, authorities this week detained a man they said appeared to be pretending to be an ICE agent - a situation they said was possible because real ICE agents are refusing to properly identify themselves as they aggressively detain people. Mayor Arturo Flores said the way ICE agents are acting does not present "the image of a just and lawful government." He said he can understand why people are angry and scared, especially knowing there are potential vigilantes and impersonators operating in the area. In response to the accused impersonator's arrest, Huntington Park leaders asked local police to verify the identity of any suspected ICE agents operating in the city. The suspect was found with multiple police radios, official-looking federal paperwork, flashing lights and a 9 mm handgun in his otherwise unmarked vehicle, according to city police. "When people cannot trust who is enforcing the law, public safety us undermines and fear begins to take hold," Flores said in a June 27 press conference. "What we are saying is simple: if you are acting with federal authority, show it. ID yourself Do not hide behind unmarked vehicles, facemasks and vague credentials." 'Someone's going to pull a gun' Underlying the tension between ICE and members of the public is a fundamental fact: ICE is arresting a record number of people who have no criminal record. An analysis by the Libertarian Cato Institute shows ICE is arresting four times more people with no criminal convictions or criminal charges per week now than the agency did during the same period in June 2017, when Trump was also president. "This is a radical tactical shift compared to Trump 1.0," David Bier, Cato director of immigration studies, in a post on X. ICE officials said they are responding to interference by the public. They say advocacy groups are stalking agents as they try to make arrests, putting the agents at risk and allowing their targets to escape. Federal agents testifying before a Senate committee on June 26 said that during a recent enforcement operation bystanders photographed an officer and posted the photo online with a threatening message. There's been a small but growing number of incidents, too, in which people called their local police department to report the presence of armed, masked men bundling community members into unmarked vehicles. ICE officials also often say that if hundreds of "sanctuary" jurisdictions around the country would hand over immigrants after they've completed a criminal sentence, that would reduce the need for agents to make risky, public arrests. But prior to Trump's enforcement ramp-up - about 70% of people arrested by ICE were transferred directly from the prison system into ICE custody, according to the nonprofit Freedom for Immigrants. Trump's new approach has pushed agents to make more arrests in the community at places like Home Depot. The push to meet a quota is driving agents toward raids and round-ups that expose them to greater risk in the field, says Goldstein. She worries that aggressive tactics combined with masks will eventually lead to a shootout. Twenty-eight states have "Stand Your Ground" laws that allow citizens to shoot if they feel threatened. "If you have masked people running out at you, someone's going to pull a gun out and someone's going to get hurt," she said. Trump's Homeland Security leadership appears to have no plans to back down. "Federal law enforcement is facing an ever-escalating increase in assaults," DHS posted to X, "but we will not be deterred."
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Iran can enrich uranium for a bomb within months, UN nuclear chief says
Iran has the capacity to start enriching uranium again - for a possible bomb - in "a matter of months", the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog has Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the US strikes on three Iranian sites last weekend had caused severe but "not total" damage, contradicting Donald Trump's claim that Iran's nuclear facilities were "totally obliterated"."Frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there," Grossi said on attacked nuclear and military sites in Iran on 13 June, claiming Iran was close to building a nuclear weapon. The US later joined the strikes, dropping bombs on Iran's three nuclear facilities: Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan. Since then, the true extent of the damage has been Saturday, Grossi told CBS News, the BBC's US media partner, that Tehran could have "in a matter of months... a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium".He added that Iran still possessed the "industrial and technological capacities... so if they so wish, they will be able to start doing this again."The IAEA is not the first body to suggest that Iran's nuclear abilities could still continue - earlier this week, a Pentagon intelligence assessment found the US strikes only set the programme back by retorted furiously by declaring that Iran's nuclear sites were "completely destroyed" and accused the media of "an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history".For now, Iran and Israel have agreed to a Trump has said he would "absolutely" consider bombing Iran again if intelligence found that it could enrich uranium to concerning is coming back to life, but its residents are deeply shakenHow a volatile 24 hours edged Iran and Israel to a ceasefireUS gained nothing from strikes, Iran's supreme leader saysIran, on the other hand, has sent conflicting messages on how much damage was a speech on Thursday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the strikes had achieved nothing significant. Its foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, however, said "excessive and serious" damage was already-strained relationship with the IAEA was further challenged on Wednesday, when its parliament moved to suspend cooperation with the atomic watchdog, accusing the IAEA of siding with Israel and the two countries attacked Iran after the UN body last month found Tehran to be in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in 20 insists that its nuclear programme is peaceful, and for civilian use the Iranian refusal to work with his organisation, Grossi said that he hoped he could still negotiate with Tehran."I have to sit down with Iran and look into this, because at the end of the day, this whole thing, after the military strikes, will have to have a long-lasting solution, which cannot be but a diplomatic one," he said. Under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Iran was not permitted to enrich uranium above 3.67% purity - the level required for fuel for commercial nuclear power plants - and was not allowed to carry out any enrichment at its Fordo plant for 15 Trump abandoned the agreement during his first term in 2018, saying it did too little to stop a pathway to a bomb, and reinstated US retaliated by increasingly breaching the restrictions - particularly those relating to enrichment. It resumed enrichment at Fordo in 2021 and had amassed enough 60%-enriched uranium to potentially make nine nuclear bombs, according to the IAEA.
