Final days to claim your email-exclusive offer | | A US Navy sailor conducts preflight checks on an F/A-18E Super Hornet aircraft |  | Sophia Yan Senior Foreign Correspondent | Donald Trump wants Iranian Kurdish forces to invade Iran and spark a revolution from within.
He’s even pledged air support, and reports have surfaced that the CIA is working to arm an opposition. Could a proxy US force – at best 1,500-strong, experts estimate – really be the straw that breaks the camel’s back? Could exiled Kurd separatists with guns really topple the fearsome Islamic Republic and the entirety of its entrenched security apparatus?
A ground offensive could be disastrous – the Kurds would be outnumbered and outgunned.
Experts say they’d need US and Israeli airstrikes for cover and for regime forces to defect. They’d also likely need the masses to take to the streets and other fledgling separatist groups to join the fray. The latter, however, may never happen. Iranian Kurdish militants will already be challenged in galvanising their own community of Kurds, let alone Iran’s entire, diverse nation of 90 million people.
Neighbouring allies, including US partners Turkey and Iraq, are very much against the idea given the serious domestic security concerns.
Trump must be careful what he wishes for.
Read the full story here ➤ |  | Henry Bodkin Jerusalem Correspondent | Donald Trump has said he must personally approve the next leader of Iran, dismissing Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ayatollah, as a “waste of time”.
The US president signalled his determination to shape the future of the country as Admiral Brad Cooper, chief of US Central Command, said offensive action had brought down Iranian missile fire by 90 per cent. However, Trump has also ruled out putting US troops on the ground in Iran.
Pete Hegseth, his secretary for war, hinted that the US was about to ramp up its campaign, warning that the “the big one” is coming.
American firepower in Iran was “about to surge dramatically”, Hegseth said, hinting America would step up its bombardment of Iran now the UK had permitted use of the Diego Garcia base in the Chagos Islands. | An explosion, reported to be near a military academy, rocks Tehran in the early hours of this morning | In London, Sir Keir Starmer called for de-escalation, urging the president to negotiate with Iran, even as the regime bombed British bases.
The Government’s first charter flight from the Middle East touched down overnight with British evacuees describing their relief after a “terrible” ordeal in which they were stranded in Oman for hours.
Despite being pummelled by US and Israeli jets and missiles, Iran is still lashing out widely in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia said it intercepted three ballistic missiles launched towards its Prince Sultan Air Base. A hotel in Bahrain, as well as buildings in Tel Aviv, was damag in overnight missile attacks, although no casualties were reported. | The Shajare Tayyebe primary school in Minab after it was hit with a deadly strike | Meanwhile, two US military investigators told Reuters they believed it likely that US strikes were responsible for a hit on an Iranian girls’ school that killed dozens.
Follow the latest updates here ➤ | | A month ago, Sir Keir Starmer could look fondly on his times with Donald Trump as some of the most successful of his premiership, writes Tony Diver, our Political Editor. Since then, the special relationship has been torn asunder over a debate about RAF bases and the bombing of Iran. Both men are furious and details are only now starting to emerge about what really happened in those three weeks in February.
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Trump’s new name for Starmer is his most derogatory yet ➤ | |  | | Europe is tying itself in knots over how to respond to Donald Trump’s war on Iran, writes Joe Barnes, our Brussels Correspondent. Nato chief Mark Rutte says the US knows what it’s doing. Germany is supportive. However, Spain and France have mounted their own offensives against it. Italy is a quiet dissenter and Sir Keir Starmer is caught in the middle. This is how Europe is divided. Continue reading ➤ | | | Ambrose Evans-Pritchard China’s pitch is that unification is unstoppable, resistance is futile and the US betrays its allies Continue reading ➤ Sherelle Jacobs Everyone is underestimating how popular PM Angela Rayner could be Continue reading ➤ Judith Woods Tax-dodging Britons should pay for their own flights out of the Middle East Continue reading ➤ | | To make sure you don’t miss our newsletters when they land in your inbox, click here. | | Fans were seen fighting in the stands | | Buying your first property, looking to downsize or just curious to know the value of homes in your neighbourhood? Then our property tool is right up your street. It uses the latest market data to inform your results, so you can easily track where prices are rising, where they’re cooling and how your area stacks up nationally. Simply enter your postcode to get started.
If you’ve used this tool before, we’ve updated the figures so you can see whether your property market is still thriving or in trouble. For subscribers only ➤ | | | | | Fekky on his farm in Cambridgeshire with one of his chickens | | A rapper from Lewisham may not seem the obvious occupant of a Cambridgeshire smallholding, but 38-year-old Fekky is no stranger to bucking trends, writes LA Robinson. After falling into gang life aged 15, the South Londoner turned to the music industry as a way out. Now, after rediscovering his love of nature during lockdown, he’s channelling his ambition into farming and hopes that youths involved in gangs today will follow his lead. Continue reading ➤ | | | | | Lewis Hamilton described himself as ‘half-African’ and said the continent is ‘the most beautiful part of the world’ | | Lewis Hamilton deserves a red flag, rather than a chequered one, for his bizarre suggestion that the rulers of assorted African countries should “take Africa back” from their supposed European overlords, argues Simon Briggs, our Senior Features Writer. Leaving aside the glaring historical and political inaccuracies, if Hamilton really feels so ashamed of Britain’s colonial heritage, maybe he should hand his knighthood back. Continue reading ➤ | | | Dr Fung says that it’s not just the number of calories that matters, but what your body does with them | Have you been religiously cutting calories and sticking to your exercise plan, yet the scale still refuses to budge? According to Dr Jason Fung, the best-selling author, that’s because the physiology of obesity is far more complex than “eat less, move more”. He explains why treating all calories as equal is a recipe for weight gain and reveals that what we eat, and when we eat it, can force our bodies to burn more fat.
Continue reading ➤ | | Minnelli inherited plenty from her mother. Her rip-roaring memoir tells all | Books Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! ★★★★★ Liza Minnelli has often refused to contribute to documentaries about her mother’s life. However, in her rip-roaring new memoir, she spills the complex beans on Judy Garland. There are great stories of trick-or-treating at Gene Kelly’s house and receiving cash gifts from Frank Sinatra (with whom her mother had an affair). She is also blunt about the trauma of her childhood. You feel her agony when she realises that she was repeating her mother’s old patterns, from drug addiction to choosing unsuitable lovers.
Read Helen Brown’s full review ➤ Film Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man ★★☆☆☆ A plucky Tommy wins the war for Blighty? Tommy Shelby has been many things since Steven Knight’s Peaky Blinders began – gangster, racketeer, bookmaker, Labour MP, capitalist, communist, spy – but Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man gives him his biggest and daftest assignment yet. The film spin-off has Shelby going toe to toe with the Nazis. Yet the effort to turn him into a last-minute SAS Rogue Hero falls a little flat. This franchise may have reached its sell-by date.
Read Chris Bennion’s full review ➤ Television Vladimir ★★★★☆ Vladimir is a quirky campus comedy which requires us to swallow the idea that the gorgeous Rachel Weisz has faded into invisibility upon hitting middle age. She plays an English literature professor who falls hopelessly in lust with a younger colleague (Leo Woodall, playing another topless toyboy). Weisz is tremendously funny as she navigates this crush while her life unravels. The style of the series takes a bit of getting used to, but think of it as Fleabag for 50-somethings.
Read Anita Singh’s full review ➤ | Green fingers Every weekday, Orlando Bird, our loyal reader correspondent, shares an off-piste topic that has brought out the best of your opinions and stories. Orlando writes...
It happens every year. March arrives, I look at my garden and suddenly realise I need to do something about it. As you may have gathered already, I am not blessed with the greenest of fingers, so tend to play to my strengths.
I can prune (or at least hack semi-systematically), pick up the detritus strewn around by our neighbourhood foxes over the winter and – a special skill, this – run my ancient Flymo across the lawn without a major electrocution incident (so far). I’m always conscious, though, that there’s more I could be doing, and Tom Brown’s article confirms it.
In response, readers have been sharing their horticultural rites of early spring. John Mulvany explains: “I do my pots around March 20. The hostas that have been surviving in builders’ bags are invariably nicely sprouting and are transplanted into their terracotta pots. I use recycled compost that has also been in builders’ bags. Now rejuvenated, it is perfect for the new season’s growth.”
Peter Riding was a little less upbeat: “I am dreading having to tackle my lawn as the wet, mild winter has ruined it with moss.”
Alan Winstanley advised using “a tablespoon of ferrous sulphate in a watering can. Raking out thatch and dead moss improves the lawn.”
Another reader wrote in with what appeared to be a personal reminder for me: “Take your Christmas tree to the tip.”
Bill Robertson, however, advocated a more laid-back approach: “People always seem to be impatient to start sowing seeds. If you wait until it gets drier and warmer, the later-sown seeds will soon catch up.”
Finally, a query from William Petch: “I do not know whether anybody else has noticed, but the mimosa blossom has been outstanding this year. Why might this be? It has brightened up a rather dull time.” Have you been busy in the garden? Send your responses here, and the best of the bunch will feature in a future edition of From the Editor PM, for which you can sign up here.
Please confirm in your reply that you are happy to be featured and that we have your permission to use your name. | | Find as many words as you can in today’s Panagram, including the nine-letter solution. Visit Telegraph Puzzles to play a range of head-scratching games, including PlusWord, Sorted, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.
Yesterday’s Panagram was DETERRENT. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle. | | Please let me know what you think of this newsletter. You can email me your feedback here.
Thank you for reading. Have a fulfilling day and I hope to see you tomorrow.
Chris Evans, Editor | |
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