TEHRAN/LONDON: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards arrested several foreign diplomats including a Briton, accusing them of “spying,” the Fars news agency and state television said Wednesday.
“The Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence service identified and arrested diplomats from foreign embassies who were spying in Iran,” Fars said, adding that a British diplomat was subsequently expelled from the country.
State television however reported that the Briton was expelled from “the area” where the diplomats had been arrested in central Iran.
Britain’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that reports that a British diplomat had been detained in Tehran for alleged spying were “completely false.”
“Reports of the arrest of a British diplomat in Iran are completely false,” a British foreign office spokesperson said.
The news comes amid tensions as Iran and world powers struggle to agree on a return to a 2015 nuclear deal.
It also comes as Belgium’s parliament on Wednesday approved a controversial prisoner-swap treaty with Iran in a first reading of a text that still has to be submitted to a full vote to be ratified.
Last month Amnesty International called on the British government to investigate Iran’s six-year detention of dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, denouncing it as “an act of hostage-taking.”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, who was first detained in Iran in 2016, returned to Britain in March along with fellow dual national Anoosheh Ashoori after London agreed to pay a longstanding debt to Tehran.
Amnesty has compiled a detailed analysis of the case, which it says includes “compelling evidence that Iran’s detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe amounted to an act of hostage-taking.”
(With AFP and Reuters)
Foreign diplomats including Briton arrested in Iran
https://arab.news/b2nrm
Foreign diplomats including Briton arrested in Iran
- Revolutionary Guard accused the UK deputy ambassador and other foreigners of ‘espionage’ and taking soil samples from prohibited military zones
- UK says reports British diplomat has been detained are completely false
US condemns RSF drone attack on World Food Programme convoy in Sudan’s North Kordofan
WASHINGTON: The US has condemned a drone attack on a World Food Programme (WFP) convoy in Sudan’s North Kordofan state that killed one person and injured three others.
“The United States condemns the recent drone attack on a World Food Program convoy in North Kordofan transporting food to famine-stricken people which killed one and wounded many others,” US Senior Adviser for Arab and African Affairs Massad Boulos wrote on X.
“Destroying food intended for people in need and killing humanitarian workers is sickening,” the US envoy wrote.
“The Trump Administration has zero tolerance for this destruction of life and of U.S.-funded assistance; we demand accountability and extend our condolences to all those affected by these inexcusable events and terrible war,” he added.
The United States condemns the recent drone attack on a World Food Program convoy in North Kordofan transporting food to famine-stricken people which killed one and wounded many others. This follows an attack earlier this week in Blue Nile state that injured a @WFP staff member.…
— U.S. Senior Advisor for Arab and African Affairs (@US_SrAdvisorAF) February 6, 2026
Since April 2023, the conflict between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and which the UN has described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
An alert issued by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), confirmed famine conditions in El-Fasher and Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, about 800 kilometers to the east.
The IPC said that 20 more areas in Sudan’s Darfur and neighboring Kordofan were at risk of famine.
The Sudan Doctors Network said the convoy was struck by RSF drones in the Allah Karim area as it headed toward displaced people in El-Obeid, the state capital, Anadolu Agency reported.
The network described the attack as a “clear violation of international humanitarian law,” warning that it undermines efforts to deliver life-saving aid to civilians amid worsening humanitarian conditions across the country.
There was no immediate comment from the rebel group.
Of Sudan’s 18 states, the RSF controls all five states in the western Darfur region, except for parts of North Darfur that remain under army control. The army holds most areas of the remaining 13 states across the south, north, east and center of the country, including the capital, Khartoum.
The conflict between the army and the RSF, which erupted in April 2023, has killed thousands of people and displaced millions.
