By Sean Rayment Britain has agreed to create a unified naval force with nine European countries to deter future Russian threats from the “open sea border” to the north, the head of the Royal Navy has announced. General Sir Gwyn Jenkins said that despite the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, where the Strait of Hormuz remains closed after the US-Israeli war in Iran, “Russia remains the gravest threat to our security”. In a speech at the Royal United Services Institute, Gen Jenkins said the UK was “at an inflection point” and that “there is no time to lose” as…

By Andre Pienaar Theresa May expelled 23 Russian intelligence officers after the Salisbury nerve-agent attack by the Russian GRU. The Iranian embassy’s open call for martyrs in London, an Iranian sponsored terrorist group focused on targets across London, followed by yesterday’s stabbings of two Jewish men in Golders Green, demands the same response. On Wednesday morning, two Jewish men aged 76 and 34 were stabbed in broad daylight on a residential street in Golders Green. The Metropolitan Police declared it a terrorist incident. Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, named the victims as Nachman Moshe ben Chaya Sarah and Moshe…

How an Argentine special prosecutor was killed on the eve of his testimony against the IRGC — and why the cover-up still matters By Andre Pienaar The case against Ahmad Vahidi, now Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was built by one brave man over eleven years. His name was Alberto Nisman. He was killed in his Buenos Aires apartment on 18 January 2015, twelve hours before he was due to present that case to the Argentine Congress. The decade that has passed since his death has produced a slow, difficult and contested judicial reversal, from an initial…

By Andre Pienaar On 18 July 1994, a man named Ibrahim Hussein Berro drove a Renault Trafic van loaded with several hundred kilograms of ammonium nitrate, aluminium powder and TNT into the front of a seven-storey building on Calle Pasteur in Buenos Aires. The building housed the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, the social and welfare hub of Argentina’s Jewish community. The blast killed 85 people and injured more than 300. It remains the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentine history. Argentina’s Court of Cassation ruled in April 2024 that the attack had been planned by Iran and executed by Hezbollah. Earlier…

By Ben Farmer Russia spent millions of dollars paying influencers and placing propaganda in news outlets to spread disinformation across Africa, according to leaked documents. A network of 35 websites and media organisations published more than 700 articles after receiving Russian funding in 2024 alone, as part of a continent-wide disinformation scheme. Articles were commissioned for between $250 and $700 each and covered subjects ranging from alleged French “neo-colonialism” to claims that a World Health Organization-backed malaria vaccination programme was using African children as guinea pigs. Others promoted Moscow’s position on the Ukraine war or amplified anti-Western conspiracy theories. Details…

By Andre Pienaar The world is at war. The number of active cross-border conflicts now exceeds anything seen since 1945, with more than seventy-eight countries entangled in conflicts beyond their own borders. A “world at war” is at risk of becoming a “world war.” The war in Ukraine is linked to the conflict with Iran through the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty signed between Moscow and Tehran in 2025. That treaty enables the transfer of weapons and advanced technology, the sharing of intelligence, and the coordination of hybrid operations between two states with overlapping grievances against the West. Russia and Iran…

The Iranian military has achieved unprecedented accuracy levels in its drone and missile capabilities by relying on Chinese and Russian-made guidance chips linked to satellite systems. Exploiting a technology invented in the UK almost half a century ago has allowed Iran to use imported satellite chips to gain a significant advantage for its missiles and drones. The development marks a major shift in Tehran’s strike capabilities, with experts warning that the Iran war demonstrated a level of accuracy not previously associated with the country’s arsenal. Western security sources also told The National that there is a “high probability” that Iranian…

The UK’s cyber security authority has announced that passkeys should now replace passwords as the default way consumers sign in to online services, marking a significant shift in long-standing digital security practice. Guidance published during Day Two of CYBERUK in Glasgow by the National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ, states that passkeys are ready for widespread adoption and should become the preferred login method wherever available. The decision reflects growing concern among cyber security officials that passwords are no longer sufficiently resilient against modern cyber threats. Passkeys allow users to authenticate access to accounts through their device, typically using biometrics or a secure unlock…

By Andre Pienaar A pattern has taken shape on the streets of north-west London that British counter-terrorism policing can no longer describe as opportunistic antisemitism. In the space of roughly five weeks, synagogues, Jewish charities, a Jewish emergency medical service, Iranian dissident media, and the perimeter of the Israeli Embassy have all been struck, reconnoitred or threatened. Every significant attack has been claimed by the same previously unheard-of group: Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, the “Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right”, abbreviated as HAYI. British officials now openly treat it as a line of inquiry into Iranian state sponsorship.…

By Ben Farmer Sudan’s three-year-long war is being rapidly transformed by the use of drone warfare technology, as strikes kill hundreds of people. Both the Sudanese army and its paramilitary enemy, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), are increasingly using remote-controlled aircraft to carry out long-range attacks deep into enemy-held territory. Around 700 people have been killed by drones so far in 2026 alone, and use of the weapons is expected to allow the enemies to keep fighting through the coming rainy season, which usually heralds a slowing down in operations. Sudan’s catastrophic civil war is the latest conflict to be…

By Andre Pienaar In a rare joint statement issued on 20 April 2026, the Mossad, the Shin Bet and the Israel Defense Forces disclosed the existence, structure and leadership of Unit 4000, a covert directorate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Intelligence Organisation (IO) responsible for assassination, sabotage and targeted kinetic attacks on Israeli, Jewish and Western targets around the world. The disclosure set out, in unusual public detail, how the unit’s senior leadership was identified, mapped and systematically eliminated during Operation Rising Lion, the Israeli component of the joint US–Israeli campaign against Iran known in Washington as Operation…

A majority of intelligence agencies across the Five Eyes alliance are now led by women for the first time, according to the second annual Top 50 Women in National Security list published by National Security News. The NSN Top 50 Women in National Security 2026 recognises women whose leadership across government, military, intelligence, technology and policy is shaping national and international security at one of the most volatile moments in recent geopolitical history. Building on the inaugural list published in 2024, this year’s edition documents the deepening influence of women at the highest levels of power, from the prosecution of…