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‘They killed my sons’: chief of Nigerian village where jihadists massacred hundreds recounts night of terror

The traditional chief of a village in western Nigeria where jihadists massacred residents earlier this week has recounted a night of terror during which the attackers killed two of his sons and kidnapped his wife and three daughters. Umar Bio Salihu, the 53-year-old chief of Woro, a small, Muslim-majority village in Kwara state, said that at about 5pm on Tuesday the gunmen “just came in and started shooting”. “All those shops that are within the road, they burnt them … Some people have been burned inside their houses,” he told the Agence France-Presse news agency. “They killed two of (my sons) standing at the front of my house. They took away my second wife with some three (daughters). They are with them presently in the bush.” Salihu survived by hiding in a house, then fled to the neighbouring town of Kaiama, where he has a home, after the attackers left. The attack lasted until 3am, he said. “When the day breaks, the corpses we see, it’s too much,” he said. Woro, a village of several thousand people, sits near a forest region known as a hideout for jihadist fighters and armed gangs. Footage broadcast by local news stations after the attacks on Woro and the neighbouring village of Nuku showed bodies lying in blood on the ground, some with their hands tied, and burning houses. Details are still emerging from the attack, the country’s deadliest so far this year. According to the Red Cross, the death toll stands at 162 people, and the search for bodies is ongoing. Salihu said the jihadists had sent a letter saying they were coming to the village to preach, and went on the rampage when no one attended. Residents separately told Reuters that the attackers had long preached in the village, urging locals to abandon the Nigerian state and adopt sharia rule. The Nigerian president Bola Tinubu has condemned the “beastly attack”, deployed an army battalion to the troubled region, and blamed the Islamist extremist Boko Haram movement – though the name is often used generically for jihadist groups in Nigeria. The attack – described by Amnesty International’s Nigeria office as “a stunning security failure” – was the latest in a series of repeated and widespread acts of violence by jihadists and other armed groups in Nigeria. The country is experiencing a jihadist insurgency in the north-east and north-west, as well as a surge in looting and kidnapping for ransom by armed groups known as “bandits” in the north-west and north-central regions. Experts say that Kwara is fast becoming a new frontier for armed groups seeking to expand in Africa’s most populous country. James Barnett, a researcher at the Washington-based Hudson Institute, told Associated Press armed groups have been going farther afield because they are finding a lot of competition from rival groups in the areas where they traditionally operated. The armed groups in Nigeria include at least two affiliated with Islamic State: an offshoot of Boko Haram known as the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and the lesser-known Islamic State Sahel Province, known locally as Lakurawa. The military has in the past said the Lakurawa has its roots in neighbouring Niger and that it became more active in Nigeria’s border communities after a 2023 military coup. Kwara borders Niger state, which is targeted increasingly by armed groups and is a hotspot where ISWAP and other armed groups have stepped up village attacks and mass kidnappings. Insecurity in Nigeria has been under intense scrutiny in recent months since the US president, Donald Trump, alleged that there was a “genocide” against Christians in the country. The claim has been rejected by the Nigerian government and many independent experts, who say the country’s security crises claim the lives of Christians and Muslims, often without distinction. Elsewhere on Tuesday, unknown gunmen killed at least 13 people in Doma village in the north-western state of Katsina, a police spokesperson said. Agence France-Presse, Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

Trump waters down criticism of UK’s Chagos Islands deal after call with Starmer

Donald Trump has watered down his criticism of the UK’s plan to hand the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius, saying the deal was the “best” Keir Starmer could make. The US president had described ceding sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory, which includes the Diego Garcia military base, as an “act of great stupidity” only last month. He also claimed the deal was one of many “national security reasons” why the US should acquire Greenland. Under the deal, Britain would cede control over the islands to Mauritius but lease the largest, Diego Garcia, for 99 years to continue operating a joint US-UK military base there. Trump endorsed the handover when Starmer visited the White House last year. But posting on Truth Social last month, Trump wrote: “There is no doubt that China and Russia have noticed this act of total weakness. “The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY, and is another in a very long line of National Security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired.” But after a “very productive” phone call with Starmer on Thursday, Trump appeared to backtrack to a position of approval for the deal. The US president wrote on Truth Social that Diego Garcia was “strategically situated in the middle of the Indian Ocean and, therefore, of great importance to the National Security of the United States”. He added that US military operations have succeeded over the past year “because of the strength of our warfighters, modern capability of our equipment and, very importantly, the strategic location of our Military Bases. “I understand that the deal Prime Minister Starmer has made, according to many, the best he could make.” But Trump added: “If the lease deal, sometime in the future, ever falls apart, or anyone threatens or endangers U.S. operations and forces at our Base, I retain the right to Militarily secure and reinforce the American presence in Diego Garcia. “Let it be known that I will never allow our presence on a Base as important as this to ever be undermined or threatened by fake claims or environmental nonsense.” After Starmer and Trump’s phone call, a Downing Street spokesperson said they “agreed on the importance of the deal to secure the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia, which remains vital to shared security interests”. The pair also agreed that the “UK and US will continue to work closely on the implementation of the deal”, the spokesperson said. The Conservative party and Reform UK have been highly critical of the Chagos Islands deal. Reacting to Trump’s announcement, Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, said: “The president’s statement today recognises a critical weakness in the surrender deal – the lease could fall apart, leaving our national security and that of our allies in even greater doubt. The deal is clearly a threat to our national security and is a massive strategic blunder. “The Conservative party’s view is unchanged. We have led the fight against this appalling surrender and we will continue fighting it to the end.” Trump’s reversal comes after he softened his plan to take control of Greenland, which is a semi-autonomous territory belonging to Denmark, a Nato member. After talks with Nato’s secretary-general, Mark Rutte, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum last month, Trump announced that a “framework of a future deal” on Greenland had been reached after weeks of escalating threats.

Iran is betting that Trump does not have a plan for regime change

When it comes to Iran and Donald Trump, there is so much bluff, backed by military hardware, that the truth rarely makes an appearance. It appears that a bullish Iran is going into negotiations with the US on Friday adopting maximalist positions that do not seem greatly different to those it adopted in the five rounds of talks before the negotiations were abruptly halted by the surprise Israeli attack on Iran last June. Given how much Iran has been weakened in the intervening eight months, Tehran’s refusal to change its negotiating position is at one level surprising. After all, during its 12-day war with Israel, the vulnerabilities of Iran’s air defences, and the penetration by Israeli intelligence of Iran’s political military and scientific elite were both revealed. More than 30 Iranian military commanders were killed, and 160 strikes on Iranian military targets undertaken. On 22 June the US, using B-2s and 30 Tomahawk missiles, hit Iran’s three major nuclear sites at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz, eviscerating its nuclear programme. In September UN-wide sanctions were reimposed on the country after the European powers ended their objections to this step. In January Trump tightened the screw by imposing a tariff of 25% on goods from countries that trade with Iran. All this has had a real-world impact. Since June Iran’s currency has more than halved in value against the dollar, and food inflation is heading towards three figures. These were two of the factors that sparked the nationwide protests in January that revealed the willingness of the security services to slaughter thousands of fellow Iranians. Such is the government’s anxiety at the public mood, it is still filtering the internet more than a month after the censorship started. Iran’s diplomats are hardly behaving as if the government was last month on the brink of collapse, or even now fears a return to a conflict with the US that might bring the protesters back on to the streets for the final battle. Instead it acts as if it can dictate the parameters of the talks with the US, their venue and their main topic. Iran’s negotiators are hugely experienced and never show a trace of weakness. Anything negotiable is negotiated. “One more thing” is their favourite phrase, according to Wendy Sherman, the chief negotiator for the US nuclear deal in 2013-15. Iran’s negotiating team was legalistic, full of stamina, well prepared and tough, Sherman recalled. Nevertheless, it is surprising how confident Tehran seems that the Oman talks will not immediately collapse, and if they do that the government will survive. The simplest explanation for Iran’s hardball tactics is that the regime simply does not believe Trump will carry out his threat to attack given the perils of doing so. The reprisals by Iran on Israel and US military bases could be disproportionate, and lead to fresh tensions between Washington and the Gulf states angry that the US has destabilised the region. Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said: “There seems to be a consensus among the Islamic Republic security elite that President Trump doesn’t want prolonged and messy wars at high cost. So the only thing they have to do is to make sure that it’s going to be as unpredictable, as messy and as expensive in terms of human cost and economic cost as possible.” But there is a further explanation. Iran does not believe Trump has a strategy for change inside Iran, or any interest as yet in linking up with the opposition inside and outside Iran. It is unlikely a politician as instinctive as Trump would ever have something as elevated as theory of change in a society as complex as Iran, but the administration seems to have little idea how the political gravity on the ground might shift if the US bombs start to drop. As recently as last week Marco Rubio was disarmingly frank that the US did not have a plan. “I don’t think anyone can give you a simple answer as to what happens next in Iran if the supreme leader and the regime were to fall, other than the hope that there would be some ability to have somebody within their system that you could work towards a similar transition,” he told the Senate foreign relations committee. Comparing Iran with Venezuela, he said: “I would imagine it would be even far more complex than the one we’re describing now, because you’re talking about a regime that’s been in place for a very long time.” Supporters of Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed Shah of Iran, and other figures in the diaspora, insist a US attack can galvanise the masses to return to the streets, and despite the thousands arrested and killed, the crowds, their resolve hardened by the loss of loved ones, will be better organised and prepared. “Iranians want the regime to be bombed,” said one of Pahlavi’s closest supporters, Saeed Ghasseminejad. The security forces will, under this theory, lose the political will to commit a second massacre, especially if the Iranian government was shown to have spurned a chance to strike a nuclear deal. Other dissidents inside Iran can see the case for foreign intervention even if they would prefer if it was endorsed by the UN. The human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh told Iranwire: “As for public sentiment inside Iran, many people are waiting for this strike. Many who have been driven to the brink see it as their last hope. When a society feels completely powerless against tyranny, it begins to look outward.” Many of the strongest statements from dissidents inside Iran reject external intervention. They include those by Mir Hossein Mousavi, the former Iranian prime minister and Green Movement leader, as well as the collective known as Group of 17, including the Nobel prize winner Narges Mohammadi and Mehdi Mahmoudian, the Oscar nominated screenwriter. Mousavi, 83, who is under house arrest, said he wanted a peaceful and democratic transition of power. He is less clear how that can be achieved given the repression under way. Mahmoudian told the BBC that no patriotic Iranian would ever support an external attack on their country. He warned that war would undermine domestic democratic agency, deepen social divisions and prevent a domestic democratic transition built round a referendum. But this does not mean these opponents of foreign intervention are passive or defeatist. The statement of the 17 issued on 2 January was unequivocal in demanding change that was neither reformism or revolution. “Iran can only be saved by prosecuting those responsible for the repression, ending this inhumane system, and enabling the people to determine their political future in a democratic manner,” the statement said. Three of the 17 signatories have now been arrested on charges of helping Mousavi draft his statement. Vida Rabbani, one of the three arrested, is said to be refusing to cooperate with the authorities in jail. Mohammadi, arrested separately, says she is on hunger strike. Even longtime advisers to Pahlavi worry that the call for the population to take to the streets was a mistake. Trump, for the moment, seems to have lost interest in those in jail or seeking radical change inside Iran. That may change, however, if the Iranian negotiators overplay their hand in Oman.

Cuba open to talks with US ‘without pressure’ after months of Trump threats

After months of threats from Donald Trump, the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, has said that his government is willing to talk to the United States, just so long as it is “without pressure”. Standing in front of a life-sized photograph of Fidel Castro carrying a rifle during the 1959 revolution, Díaz-Canel, the 65-year-old president, said on Thursday that his island nation had been subject to an “intense media campaigns of slander, hatred and psychological warfare”. Nonetheless, he said, the country was “willing to engage in dialogue with the United States, a dialogue on any topic, but without pressure or preconditions”. The speech was broadcast on television, radio and YouTube. The Cuban government has found itself facing mounting threats of regime change from US officials, particularly since the 3 January US military capture of Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela and the island’s traditional ally. On Sunday, Trump suggested that talks were already under way, telling reportings: “Cuba is a failing nation. It has been for a long time but now it doesn’t have Venezuela to prop it up. So we’re talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens. “I think we’re going to make a deal with Cuba.” Last month, Trump signed an executive order threatening to impose additional tariffs on countries that sell oil to Cuba, and he later claimed that Mexico had agreed to halt shipments of oil at his request – a claim the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has rejected. On Thursday Reuters reported that an oil tanker that has previously transported Venezuelan fuel to Cuba had finished loading a 150,000-barrel cargo of gasoline, in a possible sign that the South American country could be preparing to send supplies to the island. But Cuba’s government is preparing the population for hardships beyond those already apparent. The island is already amid an economic slump that has seen people begging on the streets and rooting through bins for food. In recent years, hyper-inflation has slashed state salaries and pensions. Widespread power outages continued on Thursday, with reports that the whole east region of the island was offline. Díaz-Canel said he had received messages from the presidents of China and Russia, along with many others from all over the world. “They expressed their support, commitment and determination to continue collaboration and cooperation with Cuba and Venezuela,” he said However, a Havana-based businessman who has worked with the Cuban government for more than 25 years, said: “They are out of options. There are strong rumours of talks already under way in Mexico.” In his speech, Díaz-Canel said: “The energy persecution, the financial persecution, the intensification of the blockade with these coercive measures is such that we know we have to do a very strong, very creative, very intelligent job to overcome all these obstacles. ”We are going to take measures that, while not permanent, will require effort.” And in interviews preceding the statement, other government ministers made it clear what that meant. “It’s not easy,” the deputy foreign minister, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, told the news agency Efe. “It’s difficult for the government and very difficult for the population as a whole.”

Shin Bet chief’s brother charged with ‘assisting enemy’ over cigarette smuggling in Gaza

The brother of Israel’s internal security chief has been charged with “assisting the enemy in wartime” for his alleged role in a smuggling network taking cigarettes and other goods into Gaza during an Israeli blockade of the occupied Palestinian territory. Bezalel Zini was one of more than 10 people charged in relation to the alleged network. His brother, David Zini, is the head of the Shin Bet, the domestic intelligence agency. He was appointed by the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, last May and began the job in October. Israel has long controlled all goods going into Gaza and enforced a total blockade at the height of the war that led to widespread famine. Smuggling was rife under blockade, and cigarettes were a luxury for the very few. At the peak of the conflict, a single cigarette could sell for $15 (£11) and a carton of 50 packets could cost nearly $15,000 (£11,060). It is alleged that some Israeli soldiers taking part in the devastation of Gaza, in which more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed, were also profiting from a campaign that is considered by a UN independent commission and human rights organisations to be a genocide. According to his indictment announced on Thursday, Bezalel Zini, 50, is suspected of smuggling approximately 14 cartons of cigarettes into Gaza on three separate trips into the occupied territory, for which he allegedly received roughly $120,000 (£88,700). The justice ministry accused Zini and his co-defendants of “assisting the enemy in wartime, performing transactions in property for terrorist purposes, obtaining something by fraud under aggravated circumstances, and taking bribes”. “A central category of prohibited goods smuggled into the strip was tobacco and cigarettes, which have put a total of hundreds of millions of shekels into Hamas’s coffers since the start of the war,” a ministry statement said. The ministry said the network had also smuggled iPhones, batteries, car parts and other goods into Gaza, alongside cigarettes, in an operation it said began last year. Zini’s defence lawyers said their client denied the charges. “Regarding the offence of aiding the enemy during wartime, it is a complete inversion of reality,” Haaretz quoted the legal team as saying. The lawyers played down the severity of the alleged offences, arguing: “It’s only about cigarettes [and] any claim of aiding the enemy is baseless.” Zini is officially an Israeli army reservist but was also part of a small semi-official unit known as the Uriah Force, substantially made up of rightwing extremist volunteers, who reportedly brought bulldozers and other heavy equipment into Gaza and took part in widespread demolitions during the war. According to an investigation last September in Haaretz, the Uriah Force operated outside the official army chain of command. The indictment accuses Zini of “exploiting his position” and using the cover of moving Uriah Force equipment in and out of Gaza to smuggle the cigarettes. The rightwing newspaper Israel Hayom criticised the silence of the Shin Bet chief, David Zini, over his brother’s involvement in the affair. “Zini should not be punished for his brother’s actions (assuming he is convicted),” the newspaper said. “But he must tell the Israeli public the truth about treason allegations and other conspiracy theories, including in connection to the current affair.”

Israel accused of spraying cancer-linked herbicide on farms in southern Lebanon

Lebanon has accused Israel of spraying a herbicide linked to cancer on farmland in the south of the country as a “health crime” that would threaten food security and farmers’ livelihoods. The country’s president, Joseph Aoun, condemned what he called “an environmental and health crime” and a violation of Lebanese sovereignty, and he vowed to take “all necessary legal and diplomatic measures to confront this aggression”. Israel’s government did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment, but the alleged spraying bolsters accusations that its military is carrying out a campaign of ecocide with the aim of making southern Lebanon uninhabitable, similar to its activities in the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank. The latest incident is alleged to have taken place on Sunday morning. UN peacekeepers have said they were warned by the Israeli military to remain under cover while it carried out an aerial operation to drop what they said was a non-toxic chemical substance. Videos captured light aircraft spraying extensively over agricultural areas. Lebanese authorities said that laboratory analysis identified that the spray contained glyphosate, a potent herbicide that was in 2015 classified by the World Health Organization as “probably carcinogenic to humans”. One of the world’s most widely used herbicides, glyphosate is also sprayed on many crops just before harvest to dry them out. But studies have found glyphosate-based herbicides can interfere with various organs and biochemical pathways in mammals. In a joint statement, Lebanon’s ministries of agriculture and the environment said some samples showed glyphosate concentrations “20 and 30 times higher than normal [use]”. Its use would, they said, “damage vegetation in the targeted areas, with direct repercussions on agricultural production, soil fertility and ecological balance. The statement continued: “The two ministries affirm that the spraying of chemicals from military aircraft over Lebanese territory constitutes a serious act of aggression that threatens food security, inflicts severe damage on natural resources, and undermines the livelihoods of farmers, in addition to posing potential health and environmental risks to water, soil, and the entire food chain.” In the days leading up to the incident, videos also emerged of Israeli planes appearing to spray agricultural areas inside Syria on three occasions in the space of a week. The southern Lebanese countryside still bears the ecological scars of an intense campaign by the Israeli military against Hezbollah that ended just over a year ago. In addition to an estimated 4,000 people killed, 17,000 injured and 1.2 million displaced, Israel has been accused of using white phosphorus and incendiary bombs that burned farmland, olive groves and forests across southern Lebanon, and left soils polluted with heavy metals, while the apparent use of cluster munitions left the landscape littered with unexploded bombs. Hisham Younes, the founder and president of Green Southerners, a Lebanese environmental group, said the repeated attacks on southern Lebanon’s ecosystem would have “cumulative, complex and deep impacts”. “This spraying does not take place over an intact ecosystem or healthy soil capable of better absorbing or accommodating such impacts,” Younes told the Guardian. “It occurs over land and vegetation already severely stressed and degraded by the intensive use of white phosphorus, incendiary munitions and the accumulation of heavy-metal residues and other contaminants resulting from sustained bombardment.” Israel had deliberately targeted agricultural land, including beekeepers, Younes said. “The use of glyphosate compounds adds another layer of pressure on insect communities and pollinators, with direct and immediate repercussions for an already devastated agricultural sector.” Such tactics were in line with a “legacy of colonial practices” that informed the methods used by Israeli armed forces. “The very concept of ‘scorched’ or ‘dead’ land is rooted in a colonial tradition of warfare,” Younes said. “Israel has long relied on approaches characterised by long-term destructive effects, whether on landscapes and natural systems, on ecological features, or on the systematic undermining of the conditions necessary for sustaining life and livelihoods. “Within this continuum, the recent chemical spraying cannot be seen as an isolated incident. It forms part of an evolving pattern in which environmental harm is cumulative and increasingly difficult to reverse.”

Eight current and former Toronto police arrested in organized crime inquiry

At least eight current and former Toronto police officers have been arrested following a sweeping investigation that officials say exposed the “corrosive” reach of organized crime into Canada’s largest municipal police service. Police allege fellow officers accepted bribes, aided drug traffickers, leaked personal information to criminals who then carried out shootings and helped members of organized crime in a plot to murder a corrections officer. “No corner of society is immune from the reach of organized crime, but when organized crime penetrates the Toronto police service, the harm goes far beyond the immediate wrongdoing,” said Chief Myron Demkiw of the “deeply disappointing” allegations. “To those charged today, you will answer for your actions in a court of law.” Among the current and former police officers charged are a father and son, both of whom are accused of leaking information to criminals. “This is a deeply disappointing and sad day for policing,” the York regional police chief, Jim MacSween, told reporters. More than 400 officers, including from York, Toronto and the Ontario provincial police, have been involved in the Project South investigation. Ryan Hogan, deputy chief of York region, said the investigation began in June 2025 after an attempt to murder a corrections officer working at a Toronto jail. “Over a 36-hour period, a number of suspects attended [the victim’s] home in York region, we allege for the purpose of murdering him,” he said. At the press conference, police showed surveillance footage in which three armed and masked men went to the officer’s home and rammed a police cruiser that was in the driveway. Hogan said police officers unlawfully collected personal and private information, passing it on to members of organized crime, “which ultimately resulted in serious harm in our communities”. He called the inquiry the “most complex and challenging investigations” in a career spanning nearly three decades. Seven civilians, including three accused in the murder plot, and four other men with suspected links to international organized crime, were also charged. One of the men, Brian Da Costa, was alleged involved in a “sophisticated” drug-trafficking operation. “When police officers arrested Mr Da Costa on January 23 of this year, officers seized 169 pounds of cannabis and one pound of fentanyl, which we believe was destined outbound for a European location,” said Hogan. Hogan said officers were alleged to have given “protection” to suspects accused of trafficking fentanyl and cannabis, and stole personal property from a police facility – including driver’s licences, passports and health cards. Police acknowledged the investigation, which led to at least 30 arrests, also involved the tow-truck industry, which has increasingly become engulfed by gun violence, turf wars and links to organized crime. Demkiw said the case against the officers was of an “incredible magnitude” and was without precedent in his time as leader of the Toronto police. In 2012, five Toronto officers with the drug squad were found guilty of obstructing justice after falsifying notes related to a warrantless search. “Our top responsibility is to undertake the hard work of honest examination, to look critically at how this occurred, to identify the weaknesses and to address them in a way that upholds the trust placed in the Toronto police,” he said. “Organized crime is corrosive, that it infected our service is unacceptable, but these allegations are not representative of over 8,000 members.” Hogan said police would revisit cases the officers worked on to determine if the accused directed or foiled the outcome of investigations. Four officers charged have been suspended without pay. “As a professional labour organization, we will ensure our members receive due process and wellness support as required,” the police union said in a statement. “We have no further comment regarding this investigation or the members involved.”

Epstein files shed more light on Steve Bannon’s efforts to influence European politics

Dozens of messages contained in the latest tranche of Epstein files lay bare the attempts by Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon to tap Jeffrey Epstein for support and funding to bolster European far-right parties. The messages mostly date to 2018 and 2019, when Bannon, after being sacked by Trump, regularly visited Europe in his quest to forge a movement in the European parliament uniting ultra-rightwing and Eurosceptic forces from several countries including Italy, Germany, France, Hungary, Poland, Sweden and Austria. Bannon especially set his sights on Matteo Salvini, the Italian deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right League, who at the time was at the height of his political power. Italian opposition parties this week urged Salvini to clarify whether Epstein influenced the rise of the League after Salvini’s name was cited several times in messages exchanged between Bannon and Epstein. In France, the leftwing party La France Insoumise also called for a cross-party parliament inquiry after several French figures including Jack Lang, a former culture minister, and his daughter appeared in the latest Epstein release, as did exchanges between Epstein and Bannon in which Bannon spoke of his desire to raise money for the far-right leader Marine Le Pen. In Germany, the files revealed exchanges between Epstein and Bannon promoting Alternative für Deutschland while denigrating the then German chancellor, Angela Merkel. In texts from 2018, Bannon bragged about his influence as an “adviser” to the new rightwing populists and saw the parties’ gains in Europe as a chance to use them to his and Epstein’s benefit. There is no evidence of any direct relations between Salvini and Epstein, nor any suggestion that Salvini was involved in Epstein’s sex-trafficking network. But what the messages do reveal is Epstein’s interest in European nationalists. In a message contained in one of the files and dated 5 March 2019, a couple of months before the European parliamentary elections, Bannon writes that he is “focused on raising money for Le Pen and Salvini so they can actually run full slates”. Others messages detail Bannon’s travels in Europe at the time and his ambition for increased nationalist power in Brussels, as highlighted in a flurry of exchanges between the pair at the time of the European parliament ballot in late May 2019. The messages also refer to Bannon’s meeting with Salvini in Milan in March 2018, just a few days after Italian general elections that culminated in the League forming a government with the populist Five Star Movement. Bannon met Salvini again in Italy in September that year when the League joined his anti-EU organisation, the Movement. By the following summer, Salvini was in opposition after collapsing the League’s coalition with the Five Star Movement in a failed attempt to trigger early elections. There is no evidence that Epstein financed the League, which returned to government in 2022 as an ally in Giorgia Meloni’s ruling coalition, and other European far-right parties. However, it appears that Bannon tried to tap him for funds. Andrea Casu, a politician with the centre-left Democratic party who raised questions about the subject of funding in the Italian parliament on Tuesday, said: “We are asking the government – not just Salvini – for clarity and transparency … we must first understand if there is a link, not only with Bannon, but with those who today play a political game with these rightwing forces at the European level.” Riccardo Magi, president of the leftwing party Più Europa (More Europe), claimed the Epstein files “implicate Matteo Salvini in alleged funding that Bannon had promised to provide for his election campaign”, an allegation that “raises concerns about potential external influence affecting the second-largest party in the current majority”. Bannon has declined to comment to US media about the exchanges in the latest Epstein files. Salvini’s League party dismissed speculation that Epstein might have contributed funds as “unfounded” and “serious exaggerations”. It added that the party has “never requested or received funding” and would defend itself and Salvini “in every way possible in the event of insinuations or associations with disgusting figures”. In France, Lang, who heads the Institut du Monde Arabe, a cultural organisation, features in emails discussing meetings and holidays. He admitted knowing Epstein, saying it was “at a time when nothing suggested Jeffrey Epstein was at the heart of a network of criminality”. His daughter Caroline, a film producer, resigned this week from France’s Union of Independent Producers after the emails showed she had founded an offshore company with Epstein in 2016 to invest in the work of young artists. There was no suggestion of illegality. She said she had resigned from the company when Epstein’s criminal acts were revealed. The emails also showed extensive communications between Epstein and Olivier Colom, a former diplomatic adviser to the former rightwing president Nicolas Sarkozy. One email exchange with Colom in 2018 suggested that the former finance minister Bruno Le Maire had gone to Epstein’s house in New York at an unspecified date. A person close to Le Maire told Politico that Le Maire had not known whose house he was visiting in September 2013, before he was finance minister, and quickly left when he saw Epstein at the residence, never seeing him again. Casu said the issue was not Epstein’s files per se but the questions the messages raise about powerful foreign influences and the networks aimed at weakening Europe. “These files are getting a lot of attention in the US, as is obvious,” he said. “But in my opinion, they should be given just as much attention for what they represent for Europe today, and for the political situation in which we are in.”