Terror cops probe RAF security bungle after pro-Palestine fanatics break into Britain's biggest air base
TERROR cops were last night probing a security shambles after pro-Palestine fanatics on scooters broke into Britain's biggest air base.
The thugs
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Red paint can be seen on and around the Airbus Voyager at RAF Brize Norton
Credit: ITV News
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A Palestine Action fanatic rides towards the plane on an electric scooter after evading security at the base
Credit: x
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The vandals' paint kit hangs from the scooter's handlebars
Credit: x
PM Keir Starmer called the attack 'disgraceful'.
The group, Palestine Action will be outlawed as a terrorist organisation after the brazen paint stunt at Britain's biggest air base.
The Government was last night under huge pressure following the security shambles at the high-security base.
Home Secretary
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Two fanatics on electric scooters were thought to have cut a section of the base's eight-mile perimeter fence in rural Oxfordshire, early yesterday.
Palestine Action
They then used converted fire extinguishers to spray paint on to the turbines and fuselages of the planes in a bid to ruin the engines.
The fanatics fled and were being
hunted
by counter-terror cops.
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The group also targeted commercial sites in Manchester and Chelmsford, Essex, yesterday which they claimed had links to Israel.
Security alert as man seen climbing up Big Ben sparking huge emergency response
Checks were under way on the aircraft, which cost £750million over their lifetime. Sources said damage to the engines could run into 'seven figures'.
The RAF does not expect the incident to affect wider operations.
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transport
and refuelling, including flights to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.
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Paint can be seen daubed on the engine and fuselage at dawn
Credit: Sky News
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The group claims to have sprayed paint into the engine - and putting the jet out of action
Credit: Sky News
Palestine Action said: 'By decommissioning two military planes, Palestine Action have directly intervened in the genocide and prevented crimes against Palestinians.'
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But a defence source said the group was 'confused and misguided' in its mission.
The source said: 'These planes were for air transport and air-to-air refuelling. Trying to link the Voyager fleet to Gaza is ridiculous.'
An MoD spokesman confirmed that Voyager aircraft had not been involved in refuelling or supporting Israeli Air Force jets.
They have been used to refuel RAF Typhoons fighting IS in Iraq and Syria, and against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
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Retired Col Richard Kemp said: 'Brize was attacked not by external forces but the enemy within. It was a deliberate act of sabotage.'
Lord West, the former head of the Royal Navy, described the breach as 'shocking'.
He added: 'Bearing in mind the very real risks of attacks from terrorists and Russian proxy state actors, it's unbelievable that such lax protection should be afforded to vital equipment and, in the final analysis, our people.'
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She said: 'This is not lawful protest, it's politically-motivated criminality.'
A defence source said it was impossible to patrol the base '24/7, 365'.
They said: 'We do have fences, cameras and barbed wire but to patrol with dogs all the time costs a huge amount of manpower and some of it comes back on spending to the Armed Forces.'
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Terror cops are probing the security shambles that allowed pro-Palestine fanatics on scooters to break into Britain's biggest air base
Credit: NC
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PM Keir Starmer called the attack 'disgraceful'
Credit: EPA
After the stunt, Defence Secretary
investigation
and a
review
of wider security at our bases.
Palestine Action has previously focused attention on Israeli defence contractor Elbit Systems Ltd.
In March the group claimed to have shut down its Bristol HQ using a cherry picker. Four people were charged over damage caused.
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Hunt for missiles as Israel blitzed
By Nick Parker, in Tel Aviv
ISRAELI fighter-bombers were racing against time to smash Iranian missile launchers last night as ballistic rockets rained down on the Jewish state.
It came as a mushroom cloud hung over Israel's northern port city of Haifa where a blast left 17 people injured, three seriously, yesterday afternoon.
Shrapnel tore into a 16-year-old boy's upper body, and two other victims, aged 54 and 40, had blast wounds to their legs.
An overnight lull in the attacks — in which just one Iranian rocket penetrated Israel's Iron Dome, David's Sling and Arrow missile shields — ended with a rare nationwide alert.
Sirens sounded from Galilee in the north, Tel Aviv in the west, the capital Jerusalem, and the southern city of Beersheba where a hospital was hit on Thursday.
Huge blasts were heard as interceptors streaked into the sky and explosions were reported across the nation as about 25 missiles homed in.
The worst damage was reported in Haifa as Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei crowed that Israel was getting its 'comeuppance'.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said last night that Haifa's Al-Jarina mosque 'was struck by an Iranian missile, injuring Muslim clerics and worshippers'.
And the IDF said an Iranian missile which hit Beersheba was fitted with a cluster bomb warhead.
These weapons — banned by 112 nations — explode above ground, scattering bomblets to cause maximum damage and casualties.
Israeli warplanes were yesterday mounting constant missions to knock out Iran's 300 rocket launchers.
Officials claimed two thirds of them had been hit.
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