HMS Dragon, deployed to protect British air bases in Cyprus, has docked for maintenance – less than a month after leaving Portsmouth.

The Type 45 destroyer is capable of shooting down the types of drones and ballistic missiles being launched by Iran.

Iran war latest: ‘A whole civilisation will die’, Trump warns

However, the vessel has a “minor technical issue” with its water systems, and the ship has docked in the eastern Mediterranean for what the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has described as a “routine logistics stop and a short maintenance period”.

The MoD added in a statement: “HMS Dragon will remain at a very high level of readiness during this period, able to sail at short notice if required.”

HMS Dragon is one of a number of British military assets in the region which are defending UK bases and allied nations from Iranian-made drones and other weapons.

Read more: HMS Dragon and its weapons

A Shahed-136 drone hit RAF Akrotiri – one of two major British bases in Cyprus – on 2 March, prompting the prime minister to deploy the ship.

But it took another week to leave Portsmouth, and then around another two weeks to arrive in the eastern Mediterranean.

It has raised concerns among some military analysts about the UK’s military preparedness and ability to respond to threats.

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Former Royal Navy commander Tom Sharpe told Sky’s This Is Why podcast that one reason is down to a “30-year decline” in defence spending.

But at the time, Defence Secretary John Healey pointed out that the crew completed the necessary work to prepare for deployment in six days, compared with the usual six weeks.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has been critical of the UK’s decision to provide only defensive support.

He compared Royal Navy ships to “toys”, adding they are “too old” and “broken-down”.

Military sources said the technical issue has not affected the ship’s operation, and the crew have access to water for washing and catering as normal.

In an update about the ship, the MoD confirmed in a statement: “HMS Dragon is undertaking a routine logistics stop and a short maintenance period in the Eastern Mediterranean, allowing the ship to take onboard provisions, optimise systems, and conduct maintenance.”

A driver was killed and 16 passengers were injured when a high-speed train and a truck carrying military equipment collided in France.

The crash happened on Tuesday just before 7am at a railway crossing in the town of Bully-les-Mines, authorities said.

More than 200 passengers were on board at the time, with two people taken to hospital in a critical condition.

The 56-year-old train driver was pronounced dead at the scene.

An aggravated manslaughter investigation has now been opened and the driver of the lorry was held in custody.

It is thought the train was travelling at an estimated 100mph at the time of the impact, which happened as they were travelling from Dunkirk to Paris, the regional administration, Francois-Xavier Lauch, said.

Prosecutor Etienne Thieffry said it is too early to determine the exact cause of the crash.

However, the railroad crossing gates were working correctly, according to Jean Castex, head of SNCF – the national railway authority that operates nearly all rain transport in the country.

Rescue crews were still at the scene on Tuesday clearing the wreckage as investigators continued to probe the cause of the accident.

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Pictures from the scene showed the front of the locomotive was badly mangled and the HGV was also severely damaged.

The wrecked train remained on the tracks and the railway line was closed while emergency teams worked in the area.

It became the second similar incident in the last few weeks, after a lorry driver was killed in a collision with a train at a level crossing in Saint Raphael in southeastern France on 25 March.

Donald Trump has given Iran a deadline and threatened to send the country back to the “stone ages” if it does not comply by attacking power plants and bridges.

Crucially, Mr Trump has said the US would hit civilian infrastructure, something that is widely considered a war crime under international law.

The Geneva Convention, which the UK is a signatory to, but the US is not, states, “Civilian objects shall not be the object of attack or of reprisals”.

However, the US president said in a news conference on Monday that “the entire country” could be taken out in “one night, and that night might be tomorrow”.

He added: “We’re giving them till tomorrow, 8pm EST (1am UK time), and after that, they’re going to have no bridges, they’re going to have no power plants. Stone ages.”

When asked, Mr Trump said he was “not at all” concerned that such an act could be classified as a war crime, before adding, “I hope I don’t have to do it”.

In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, the president went further, saying: “A whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

“Any targeting of civilian infrastructure… is illegal”

The possibility of targeting civilian infrastructure has been condemned by European leaders, including EU Council president Antonio Costa.

On Monday, Mr Costa wrote that “Any targeting of civilian infrastructure, namely energy facilities, is illegal and unacceptable”.

The possibility of concerted US strikes against civilian infrastructure marks a significant departure from Washington’s previous stance on war crimes and what constitutes them.

Four years ago, it was the US that was accusing Russia of war crimes over the targeting of civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, with president Joe Biden calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal”.

Despite Russia not being a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, alleged Russian actions in Ukraine still led to the International Criminal Court (ICC) issuing an arrest warrant for Mr Putin.

The Kremlin said at the time that Russia, which does not recognise the ICC, found the questions raised by the court “outrageous and unacceptable”.

Mr Costa has said that the same principle of not targeting civilian infrastructure “applied everywhere,” in the same way that it “applies to Russia’s war in Ukraine”.

The head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, has openly raised the idea that such an attack, by any party, could be counted as war crimes.

In an interview with Politico in late March, Mr Guterres said: “If there are attacks either on Iran or from Iran on energy infrastructure, I think that there are reasonable grounds to think that they might constitute a war crime.”

Previous power threats

Iran, Israel and the US have all been attacking energy infrastructure since the outbreak of the current conflict.

Responding to those attacks in March, Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s regional director, said: “There is a substantial risk such attacks would violate international humanitarian law and, in some cases, could amount to war crimes”.

However, a coordinated campaign targeting power plants, as the US has threatened, would be a significant escalation.

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This is not the first time that Mr Trump has threatened to hit Iranian power plants.

On 22 March, the president wrote on Truth Social that the US would “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants if Tehran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours.

Iran responded by saying it would attack crucial infrastructure across the Gulf in response to any US attack, including desalination plants.

On Sunday, Kuwait accused Iran of launching an attack which put a water desalination station out of service – such moves may also pass the threshold of being deemed a war crime.

Australia’s most decorated living veteran has been charged with allegedly killing five unarmed Afghans between 2009 and 2012.

Police have not named him but it’s widely reported to be Ben Roberts-Smith, a 47-year-old former SAS corporal.

He was awarded the Victoria Cross and the Medal of Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan – but now faces five counts of war crime murder.

Roberts-Smith was arrested when he landed at Sydney airport on Tuesday.

Police said he had been denied bail and would appear in court for a bail hearing on Wednesday.

“It will be alleged the victims were detained, unarmed and were under the control of ADF [Australian Defence Force] members when they were killed,” said police commissioner Krissy Barrett

Roberts-Smith is the second veteran to be charged after a 2020 report found evidence Australian SAS and commando troops had unlawfully killed 39 prisoners, farmers and other non-combatants.

Oliver Schulz, 44, is the other former Australian SAS veteran who’s been charged.

He is alleged to have shot an Afghan man in the head three times in a field in Uruzgan province in May 2012. Schulz has pleaded not guilty.

War crime murder in Australian law is defined as the intentional killing of someone not taking an active part in hostilities, such as civilians, prisoners of war or wounded soldiers. It carries a potential sentence of life in prison.

Roberts-Smith sued several newspapers over articles in 2018 that accused him of various war crimes. He has consistently denied allegations of wrongdoing during his service.

But in 2023, a civil court found he had likely killed non-combatants unlawfully, and in September, Australia’s highest court refused to hear his appeal.

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The criminal charges will need to meet a higher bar; proving the allegations beyond reasonable doubt rather than on a balance of probabilities.

Commissioner Barrett said the charges were “not reflective of the majority of members who serve under our Australian flag with honour, with distinction and with the values of a democratic nation”.

Donald Trump has praised the US fighter pilot who was rescued from an Iranian mountain over the weekend.

The airman was on board an F-15E Strike Eagle jet that was shot down by Iran on Friday, the first US aircraft to be downed by Iranian fire since the US and Israel launched the war at the end of February.

While a second crew member was located shortly after the crash, Sky News understands he was left stranded in rural Iran, and was rescued on Sunday.

At a news conference at the White House on Easter Monday, the US president said that both pilots were “incredibly brave” and that Iran was “not so strong like they were about a month ago”.

Here’s what we know about the airman’s condition, the mission to rescue him, and what the president and Iran have said.

Iran war latest: Trump praises ‘brave’ US pilots after rescue

How did the US save the airman?

After the crash on Friday, official and semi-official Iranian news organisations reported that a regional governor had offered a bounty for the F-15E crew – around $60,000 (£45,360).

A US official told the Reuters news agency the plane was flying over Isfahan province when it was brought down, and the two airmen ejected separately.

They said that the first pilot was rescued while the second airman – the jet’s weapons specialist, and a colonel – remained in Iran.

Speaking to Reuters, the US source said the American officer sprained his ankle in the crash and hid in a crevice on a hilltop.

The airman later established contact with the US military and confirmed his identity.

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What Trump didn’t mention in message about dramatic airman rescue

After this, a senior Trump administration official said the CIA had run a deception campaign earlier, hoping to confuse Tehran by planting information that US forces had already located the missing airman and were moving him before the operation took place.

An official told Reuters the US military then took additional steps, jamming electronics and bombing key roads around the location to prevent people from getting close.

They said the aircraft eventually sent to extract the airman and rescue forces were smaller turboprop aircraft, capable of landing on small airfields and relatively light.

Mr Trump provided more details of the operation at a later briefing, revealing that US military personnel faced gunfire at “very close range” during the rescue, which involved 155 aircraft, he said.

Among the craft deployed were four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers and 13 rescue aircraft, he said.

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The president told reporters the unidentified airman was ​hiding in mountains and kept climbing ​higher in order to improve ​the chances for a successful recovery.

He said, for the rescuers, it was like looking for “a needle in a haystack”.

Hundreds of US forces took part in ⁠the mission ​and helped prevent Tehran from ​finding him first, he said, adding that “hundreds of people could have been killed”.

The plan was not approved by everyone, Mr Trump said, pointing to unnamed members of the military who told him “‘You just don’t do this'”.

He said he understood that, “but I decided to do it”.

During his press conference, Trump provided intricate details of the rescue over the weekend of the second airman in Iran.

“This is a rescue that’s very historic,” he said.

Trump explained that the airman, a colonel, had landed in Iran a “significant distance away from the pilot” who had been rescued on Friday.

The second airman was “injured quite badly and stranded in an area teeming with terrorists from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – rough group – as well as besieged military, militia and local authorities.

“Despite the peril, the officer followed his training and climbed into the treacherous mountain terrain and started climbing toward a higher altitude, something they were trained to do in order to evade capture,” he said.

The serviceman was “bleeding rather profusely,” and treated his own wounds but “contacted American forces to transmit his location” using what Trump said is a “very sophisticated beeper-type apparatus” that he said “saved his life.”

“We immediately mobilised a massive operation to retrieve him from the mountain hold-out,” Mr Trump said.

“The heroic F-15 weapons system officer had evaded capture on the ground in Iran for almost 48 hours,” he said.

“In a breathtaking show of skill and precision, lethality and force, America’s military descended on the area” before they “engaged the enemy” and “rescued the stranded officer, destroyed all threats and exited Iranian territory while taking no casualties of any kind”.

Trump said that eventually there was a problem leaving Iran because of the “wet sand” and the “weight of the plane.”

“Then we also had all the men jumping back onto the planes, and they got pretty well bogged down. And we had a continued contingency plan which was unbelievable,” he said.

Trump said that “lighter, faster aircraft” flew in to take the Americans out of Iran with the airman. The U.S. destroyed the aircraft that were stuck in the sand, he said.

What happened during the rescue mission?

The initial search effort encountered fierce resistance, with two Black Hawk helicopters involved in the search reportedly hit by Iranian fire but they escaped.

In a separate incident, a pilot ejected from an A-10 Warthog fighter aircraft after it was hit over Kuwait and crashed, the officials said, though the extent of crew injuries was unclear.

The conflict has killed 13 US military service members, with more than 300 wounded, the US Central Command says. No US troops have been taken prisoner by Iran.

Two MC-130 aircraft that ferried some of the roughly 100 special operations forces into rugged terrain south of Tehran suffered a mechanical failure and could not take off.

Their commanders made a high-risk decision, ordering additional aircraft to fly into Iran to extract the group in waves.

US troops then destroyed the disabled MC-130s and four additional helicopters in Iran.

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What else has Trump said?

During the operation, Mr Trump was relatively quiet online, with a local reporter checking if he was at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC.

After the mission was finished though, the US president said on Truth Social: “Over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in U.S. History”.

He added that the airman was injured, but “he will be just fine”, before saying: “This is the first time in military memory that two U.S. Pilots have been rescued, separately, deep in Enemy Territory.

“WE WILL NEVER LEAVE AN AMERICAN WARFIGHTER BEHIND!”

At an Easter event at the White House, Mr Trump said of the rescue that “normally you’re in very hostile territory, and I don’t think it gets much more hostile than (Iran) are, and they’re capable fighters”.

“You don’t mind when the enemy is weak, but that enemy is strong, not so strong like they were about a month ago, I can tell you”, he added.

“In fact, right now they’re not too strong at all in my opinion, but we’re soon going to find out, aren’t we?”

The US president also said that “what we did yesterday is we picked up not one – we picked up two” – referring to the first pilot thought to be rescued. It’s unclear whether he misspoke.

He added: “We kept the first one quiet, and we were able to keep it quiet for about a day, which made it a lot better. But those two pilots were incredibly brave, and we thank them.”

What has Iran said?

Iran’s state TV showed on Sunday a picture of black smoke from what it said was a destroyed American transport plane and two helicopters.

Iranian state media on Friday also said a second US plane – an A-10 aircraft – crashed after being hit by Iranian forces.

The US military has not commented on the status of that aircraft or its crew.

And on the US’s rescue efforts on Sunday, Iran said several aircraft were destroyed.

The teenage daughter of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un could be considered his successor, Seoul’s spy agency has been reported as saying.

The child, believed to be named Kim Ju Ae and aged around 13, has accompanied her father to several high-profile events since late 2022.

And the pair rode in a tank together last month, sparking further speculation she is being positioned as the secretive country’s future leader.

On Monday, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) director Lee Jong-seok said in a closed-door briefing at the National Assembly the girl could be considered Mr Kim‘s successor, according to Lee Seong Kweun, one of the politicians in attendance.

NIS reportedly said its assessment was based on “credible intelligence” collected by the agency.

Asked about potential protests from Mr Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong, who has long been viewed as North Korea‘s number two figure, the NIS director responded that she has no substantial powers, Mr Lee told a briefing.

It is the agency’s strongest assessment yet on the rising political status of the teenager who it believes could extend her family’s rule into a fourth generation.

In early 2024, the NIS described the child as Mr Kim’s likely heir, and in February this year, the agency said it believed she was close to being designated as the nation’s future leader.

Some observers disagree with the assessments, arguing North Korea’s extremely male-centred society will likely not embrace a woman leader.

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They also say Mr Kim, 42, is too young to name a future leader, a development that could weaken his ruling of the country.

In a public appearance in March, the pair fired pistols during a visit to a light munitions factory.

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Will Kim Jong Un’s daughter be his successor?

The NIS, during Monday’s briefing, said North Korean authorities appeared to have organised such events to build up her military credentials and “reduce scepticism about a woman successor”, Mr Lee said.

The girl’s reported name is based on an account by former NBA star Dennis Rodman, who recalled holding Mr Kim’s baby daughter during a visit to Pyongyang in 2013.

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North Korea, established in 1948, has been successively ruled by male members of the Kim family.

Kim Jong Un inherited power upon his father Kim Jong Il’s death in late 2011. Kim Jong Il took control after his father and state founder Kim Il Sung died in 1994.

German men aged between 17 and 45 could have to get military approval if they want to leave the country for more than three months, according to recent changes to the law.

A spokesperson for the country’s defence ministry has since confirmed they expect approval to be given as long as service in the German forces is voluntary.

It comes as the nation moves towards increasing its military footprint, with new incentives to join up and conversations around conscription.

Iran war latest: US rescues missing pilot

A change to the law to reintroduce voluntary – for now – military service was made at the end of 2025.

However, late last week, German publication Frankfurter Rundschau noticed another change to Germany’s Wehrpflichtgesetz (WPflG) – its Cold War era military service legislation.

This change, when translated into English, means that “male persons must obtain permission from the competent career centre of the Bundeswehr (German armed forces) after reaching the age of 17 if they wish to leave the Federal Republic of Germany for more than three months”.

Previously, this would have only applied in times of “tension” or “defence” cases.

However, the WPflG was changed for it to apply universally, with a maximum affected age of 45.

Conscription in Germany was paused in 2011, but the war in Ukraine and subsequent global unrest have sparked discussions about whether it should be returned to mandatory from voluntary status.

The German defence ministry confirmed that the system was in place during the Cold War and “had no practical relevance; in particular, it is not subject to penalties”.

Instead, they state the system is intended for use in “an emergency” as the military “must know who may be staying abroad for an extended period”.

Exemptions are in the works to prevent “unnecessary bureaucracy”, they added.

The UK government has rejected suggestions it could move towards conscription, although it has introduced measures to try to encourage people to join the armed forces.

Germany is trying to increase the number of troops it has in the Bundeswehr from 180,000 to 260,000, with reserves set to reach 200,000.

If the British Royal Air Force, Navy and Army are combined, they number just under 150,000, according to a House of Lords report published last year, including full-time reserves.

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Of these, 82,000 were in the Army, 33,000 were in the Royal Navy or Royal Marines, and 32,000 were in the Royal Air Force.

Like much of NATO, the UK has committed to increasing its defence budget in the coming years, although there are still questions about what this will look like as the Defence Investment Plan is yet to be published.