Today’s news continues to focus on the Chancellor’s summer budget and yesterday’s anniversary of the 7/7 bombings.
ISIL ground troops
The Daily Mirror, The Sun and The Daily Star report on comments by former Prime Minister Tony Blair who has called for ground troops to be sent to bolster the fight against ISIL. He stopped short of proposing that British troops should be involved but said that the West needed to have “the means of combating them on the ground”. Articles reference the recent speculation around an MP vote to extend the air strike campaign against ISIL into Syria.
In The Daily Telegraph, Con Coughlin writes that ten years after 7/7, al-Qaeda has been routed but the West now has to face up to ISIL which he says is a far more ruthlessly efficient and cruel group. The article references the unremitting military campaign by coalition forces to destroy and disrupt al-Qaeda’s infrastructure proving highly successful and the success of the kill or capture of most of bin Laden’s senior figures. The article references that al-Zawahri is the only significant survivor of the bin Laden era.
You can read more about the UK’s contribution to defeating ISIL here.
Elsewhere The Daily Express reports on comments from former head of Scotland Yard, Bob Quick, where he said that Muslims tempted to join ISIL should go to Syria. He went as far as saying the government should lay on flights and ship out home grown jihadists to the war torn Middle East with the only condition being that you leave your passport behind.
Russian Submarines
The Sun reports that Russia is developing a fleet of virtually undetectable midget submarines dubbed ‘Piranhas’ in a fresh threat to Britain. The article reports that as part of the £230 billion rearming “splurge” the axed programme has been revived with military sources saying the Putin thinks submarines are an effective way of getting what he wants militarily. The source claims that the Piranhas can come extremely close to land and could present a significant threat to Britain. Ryan Ramsey, ex-Commanding Officer of HMS Turbulent is quoted saying “Putin’s investment in the Russian submarine Service in the last five years demonstrates real intent”.
Lt Norman Poole
The death of the first British soldier to land in France during D-Day is widely reported, including Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, Independent, and Daily Mail. Lt Norman Poole was an SAS Paratrooper and was carrying a carrier pigeon which took vital information to military chiefs. He was one of six dropped into France on 5 June 1944 and was awarded the Military Cross on the daring secret mission that helped pave the way for the largest sea borne invasion in history.
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