Vida and Quaker from the Household Cavalry are recovering from surgery after four horses broke loose in the capital

The army has said it is too early to know for sure if two military horses that suffered serious injuries after running loose through London will return to duties.

Seven horses and six soldiers from the Household Cavalry were on an extended exercise in Belgravia on Wednesday when the horses were spooked by builders moving rubble.

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Attorney general decides atrocity that killed 15 people merits further scrutiny amid new evidence

Northern Ireland’s attorney general has recommended a new inquest into a bombing by loyalist paramilitaries that killed 15 people, including two children, in Belfast in 1971.

Brenda King decided the massacre at the Catholic-owned McGurk’s bar , in north Belfast, merited fresh scrutiny amid new evidence about the location of army observation posts near the atrocity.

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Fighting with Pride charity will lead work for memorial at National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire

The UK’s first memorial commemorating the “lost legion” of LGBT people who have served in the armed forces is to be built at the National Memorial Arboretum.

The memorial will be built after a charity spearheading efforts to get justice for veterans affected by the pre-2000 ban on LGBT people serving in the UK armed forces was awarded a £350,000 grant.

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Animals ran through rush-hour streets, colliding with vehicles and leaving four people in hospital

Two of the military horses that broke loose during a morning exercise and bolted through central London on Wednesday are in “serious condition”, a minister has said.

The runaway horses, including one white horse drenched in blood, ran through the rush-hour streets of the capital, colliding with vehicles and resulting in four people being taken to hospital.

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Move extinguishes one of the last hopes of legal action over killing of 13 civil rights demonstrators in Derry in 1972

Relatives of Bloody Sunday victims have condemned a decision not to prosecute 15 former soldiers for perjury, calling it an affront to the rule of law.

Northern Ireland ’s Public Prosecution Service (PPS) on Friday announced the 15 army veterans plus a former alleged member of the Official IRA would not face prosecution for allegedly giving false evidence to the Bloody Sunday inquiry.

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Our leaders are too eager to revisit the UK’s one-time role as police officer to the world. This isn’t the way to do foreign affairs

Britain’s use of its air force to defend Israel against Iran at the weekend was an emphatic intervention in the war in Gaza. It was more than Britain has done for Ukraine. And while the war in Ukraine does at least have implications, albeit distant, for Britain’s long-term defence, Israel’s dispute with Gaza has none. It is not Britain’s business. So why did we get involved? Better by far to stick to Britain’s sensible decision to keep open a diplomatic presence in Tehran, at least more influential than a few downed drones.

The answer shone through in the remarks of the foreign secretary , David Cameron, to the BBC on Monday morning. He could not resist reverting to Britain’s one-time role as police officers to the world, telling it how Britain expects it to behave. The eagerness of British leaders to cut a dash on the world stage, usually on the coat-tails of the US, seems irresistible. In the past decade, it has sent the Royal Navy to the Mediterranean , the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. This craving seems to be resisted by most other European powers (France being occasionally an exception), who sense no similar threat to their security. Britain has a craving to project “global power” that is unrivalled by most other European powers. It is costing British taxpayers billions of pounds.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

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The Associated Press reports: As their rivalry intensifies, U.S. and Chinese military planners are gearing up for a new kind of warfare in which squadrons of air and sea drones equipped with artificial intelligence work together like swarms of bees to overwhelm an enemy. The planners envision a scenario in which hundreds, even thousands of the machines engage in coordinated battle. A single controller might oversee dozens of drones. Some would scout, others attack. Some would be able to pivot to new objectives in the middle of a mission based on prior programming rather than a direct order. The world's only AI superpowers are engaged in an arms race for swarming drones that is reminiscent of the Cold War, except drone technology will be far more difficult to contain than nuclear weapons. Because software drives the drones' swarming abilities, it could be relatively easy and cheap for rogue nations and militants to acquire their own fleets of killer robots. The Pentagon is pushing urgent development of inexpensive, expendable drones as a deterrent against China acting on its territorial claim on Taiwan. Washington says it has no choice but to keep pace with Beijing. Chinese officials say AI-enabled weapons are inevitable so they, too, must have them. The unchecked spread of swarm technology "could lead to more instability and conflict around the world," said Margarita Konaev, an analyst with Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology. "A 2023 Georgetown study of AI-related military spending found that more than a third of known contracts issued by both U.S. and Chinese military services over eight months in 2020 were for intelligent uncrewed systems..." according to the article. "Military analysts, drone makers and AI researchers don't expect fully capable, combat-ready swarms to be fielded for five years or so, though big breakthroughs could happen sooner."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Will the US-China Competition to Field Military Drone Swarms Spark a Global Arms Race?

Israel’s military has reported minor damage after Iran launched dozens of drones and missiles towards it late on Saturday

• Iran attack on Israel – live updates
• Full report: Iran launches drones and cruise missiles against Israel

Iran launched hundreds of drones as well as cruise missiles towards Israel , in the Islamic Republic’s first ever direct attack on the Jewish state in response to the 1 April strike on an Iranian diplomatic building in the Syrian capital of Damascus that killed a senior figure in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and eight other officers.

“Very little damage was caused,” according to Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant. An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said 99% of the more than 300 missiles and drones were intercepted. Sirens blared across the country and explosions were visible in the sky as the first wave reached Israel at around 2am local time (midnight BST) and Israeli air defence systems went to work.

Iranian strikes caused “minor damage” to the Nevatim airbase in the south of Israel, army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Sunday. “Only a few missiles fell in the territory of the state of Israel with slight damage to a military base in the south, with only slight damage to the infrastructure,” Hagari said in a statement.

Iran warned Israel on Sunday of a larger attack on its territory should it retaliate against Tehran’s overnight drone and missile attack, adding that US bases would be targeted if Washington backs any Israeli military action against Iran.

The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, said US forces intercepted “dozens of missiles and UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] en route to Israel”, while Gallant praised the assistance of the US and “additional partners”.

The US president, Joe Biden, said Iran was aided by its proxy forces in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. He praised the work of US military personnel in helping to bring down “nearly all” of the drones and missiles fired by Iran. Biden cut short a weekend stay at his Delaware beach house to return to the White House to meet his national security team. He has said he will convene a meeting of G7 leaders on Sunday.

Royal Air Force fighter jets and refuelling aircraft were also involved, taking off from bases in Cyprus. Their role, according to the UK Ministry of Defence, was to fill in for the US air force in the sorties against Islamic State normally carried out over Iraq and north-eastern Syria, but also to intercept Iranian drones if they came into the UK area of operations.

Jordan intercepted some flying objects that entered its airspace on Saturday night to ensure the safety of its citizens, a cabinet statement said on Sunday. Jordan, which lies between Iran and Israel, had readied air defences to intercept any drones or missiles that violated its territory, two regional security sources told Reuters.

World leaders have condemned Iran’s attack, with regional powers including Saudi Arabia and Egypt calling for restraint. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said: “I am deeply alarmed about the very real danger of a devastating region-wide escalation. I urge all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid any action that could lead to major military confrontations on multiple fronts in the Middle East.”

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Joe Biden is believed to have urged restraint, and Tehran deems the matter ‘concluded’ but ultimately Israel’s response lies in the hands of three prickly rivals in its war cabinet

• Iran attack on Israel – live updates
• Full report: Iran launches hundreds of drones and cruise missiles at Israel in unprecedented attack
• Iran attack – what we know so far

The prospect of a major regional war in the Middle East hangs in the balance on Sunday morning, when Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet is due to meet to decide Israel’s response to Iran’s drone and missile attack.

Netanyahu’s ministers voted in the middle of the night to delegate that decision to the tiny war cabinet, comprising Netanyahu, defence minister Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz, a Netanyahu opponent who joined the government as minister without portfolio after the Hamas 7 October attack, which began the spiral of violence that has brought Israel and Iran to the brink of war.

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