The KC-135 plane went down in western Iraq at around 2pm on 12 March, US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees US military operations in the Middle East, said in a statement on Friday.

The identities of the dead service members are being withheld for 24 hours after next of kin have been notified.

The plane crash "was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire", CENTCOM said, echoing an earlier statement on the incident which involved another aircraft that landed safely.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Reuters news agency the other aircraft was also a KC-135 refuelling plane.

The circumstances of the incident were under investigation, CENTCOM added.

An umbrella group of Iranian proxies called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed responsibility for downing the plane on Thursday. But the group previously made false claims about attacks during the Iran war.

The US military has used the KC-135, built by Boeing in the 1950s and early 1960s, for more than 60 years to refuel aircraft mid-flight, allowing them to carry out missions without having to land.

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Seven US troops - 13 when the crew members from the crashed plane are taken into account - have been killed since the start of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February.

So far, the war has killed more than 2,000 people, including nearly 700 in Lebanon. Israel has expanded its offensive against Iran-backed Hezbollah, with strikes hitting Lebanon's capital Beirut overnight.

It's brought a spike in oil prices, a chance to play peacemaker, and now the easing of US sanctions on Russian oil.

This latest development marks a stunning reversal of policy from the Trump administration, and a major coup for the Kremlin.

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Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, has played down the significance of any financial benefits for Moscow, stressing that the measures are "narrowly tailored" and "short term".

But that feels like wishful thinking from Washington, and a lot of positive spin.

According to the Financial Times, Russia has been pocketing as much as $150m a day in extra oil revenues as a result of the crisis, after the disruption to global energy supplies led to increased demand from China and India.

The lifting of sanctions means it now has a load of extra customers it can potentially sell to, and business has already begun, with Thailand announcing this morning that it's ready to buy Russian oil.

Oil was the area where the Trump administration had sought to put pressure on the Kremlin - to harm its economy in a bid to bring it to the table on Ukraine.

To a certain extent it was working. Depleted sales to India (as a result of US sanctions), combined with a drop in prices, has led to a ballooning budget deficit, by depriving the Kremlin of a vital source of income.

Russia's defence spending hadn't been impacted yet, but it was making the maths harder for Moscow to add up.

So this represents a remarkable turnaround, not only economically but diplomatically too.

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Symbolically it brings Russian oil back in from the cold, and creates further splits in the transatlantic alliance.

Europe is staunchly against any sanctions relief for Russia, with both Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz voicing their opposition to it in recent days. Such friction only plays into Moscow's hands.

Domestically, too, it helps the Kremlin reinforce its message to the public that it was right all along - that the world needs Russia.

"The US is effectively acknowledging the obvious: without Russian oil, the global energy market cannot remain stable," Kremlin investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev wrote on Telegram.

"Amid the growing energy crisis, further easing of restrictions on Russian energy sources appears increasingly inevitable, despite resistance from some in the Brussels bureaucracy," he added.

Moscow clearly hopes this means that the sanctions genie is out of the bottle. Depending on the direction of oil prices, it may well be right.

The image shows Andrew and Mandelson, the UK's former ambassador to the US, sitting in white bathrobes with the late convicted paedophile.

The picture was among the Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice. Being mentioned in the files is not evidence of wrongdoing.

The former prince has always denied wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

Lord Mandelson has previously denied any wrongdoing over his relationship with the billionaire paedophile and has apologised to the financier's victims.

Andrew lost his royal and military titles over his links to Epstein, who took his life while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges in a US prison in 2019.

The former prince was arrested and released under investigation on Thursday 19 February, over allegations of misconduct in public office - something he strongly denies.

He had been arrested at Sandringham on his 66th birthday on suspicion that he shared sensitive information with Epstein when he was UK trade envoy.

The former prince has been living at Sandringham since leaving Royal Lodge in Windsor at the start of February.

Lord Mandelson was questioned by police after being arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office at the end of last month.

He was accused of passing sensitive information to Epstein during his time as business secretary from 2008 to 2010, when Gordon Brown was prime minister.

He was released on bail and he has previously denied any wrongdoing.

A metal battering ram known as "the big red key" was the first thing to enter their premises, followed by the scream of "Police!", and officers with helmets and shields.

This was a punch into the organised distribution of class A drugs known as "county lines", described as "one of our most exploitative criminal models" by the man who co-ordinated this UK-wide crackdown.

A total of 2,180 people were arrested but there were also nearly 800 children discovered who needed to be safeguarded; many are thought to have been exploited into selling drugs on the UK's streets.

Sky News joined Hampshire Constabulary, along with their secret weapon, a police dog called Major, who can sniff out traces of cocaine and heroin even in a flat that reeked of cat faeces and weed.

After watching her door being smashed open, a woman was led away in handcuffs and at first glance around the neglected property there seemed little trace of the criminal gang police suspected of using it as a base to prepare and distribute drugs.

That was until a handgun was found in a drawer under the TV, one of 121 seized across the county, along with a bayonet and a machete.

There was a set of scales for weighing drugs and, on the floor, a driving licence covered in white powder belonging to an Iranian man with a London address.

Evidence was bagged up and intelligence shared with officers in London. This intensive week of action, happening in forces across the country, is designed to act as a disruptive shock to organised criminals in the drug-dealing business.

Bodycam footage from other forces showed the discovery of cannabis farms, blocks of cocaine, large wads of money and on a raid in South Wales, a man trying to escape from his upstairs window wearing only his underpants.

Police also seized swords, a crossbow, a gold bar, a gold suitcase and gold teeth.

However, this nationwide week of action is one of many co-ordinated drugs busts that have gone before it - and the figures for arrests and the number of county lines closed, this time 335 across the UK, are remarkably similar to the numbers in previous operations.

Despite seizing 10,500 wraps of class A drugs, 15,000 cannabis plants and £1.5m in cash, there is a question over whether it makes much of a dent in this industry.

The key feature of county lines drug dealing is the use of dedicated and marketed deal phone lines, mostly for the supply of crack cocaine and heroin to addicts and often hand prepared and delivered by exploited children.

According to the National County Lines Coordination Centre the number of lines each year across the UK has risen, from 4,503 in 2020/21 to 6,544 in 2024/25, driven by an increased number of local lines being opened - lines that do not cross police borders.

However, with the increased threat of prosecution under modern slavery legislation, the number of children recorded as being used by these gangs has fallen, down 8% last year to 2,659.

That runs alongside a drop in recorded knife crime and there was a 25% drop in hospital admissions for stabbings in the areas where large quantities of class A drugs originate.

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Paul Brogden, the Metropolitan Police commander who co-ordinated the week of action, told Sky News that county lines is still "one of our most exploitative criminal models, it's men of violence and also getting children drawn into really awkward and difficult situations in terms of drug dealing".

But there are encouraging signs, he said, such as "seeing the age at which children are involved in county lines go gradually up".

"Levels of violence associated with county lines is down, homicide rates are down, gun offending is down, so these are some impacts of the county lines programme beyond just closure of drug dealing lines," he added.

These are all promising trends, and this will have been a bad week for some bad people - but where lines have been disrupted, it's likely more will reopen. It's a cycle of addiction and violence that is hard to break.

What's more, criminals continue to evolve. Last year, there were only 89 social media lines reported; this year, that figure increased to 429.

Scotland could see potentially disruptive snowfall, while the north of England is bracing for freezing temperatures.

The Met Office predicts cold and sometimes blustery winds for Friday evening, with potentially heavy showers in the north and west, as temperatures drop to around four degrees below average.

There is also potential for widespread frost, including icy patches, forming overnight.

Find out the forecast for your area

Grahame Madge, spokesperson for the Met Office, said: "Parts of the higher areas of the Lake District, the Pennines, possibly even as far as the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors, might begin to see some wintry conditions, and freezing conditions overnight, but we're not anticipating that this is going to last long."

Areas where temperatures are set to drop below freezing overnight include Yorkshire and the Humber, with minimum temperatures of minus 1C, Northern Ireland, with a minimum temperature of minus 2C, and Dumfries, Galloway, Lothian and Borders, with a minimum temperature of minus 2C, according to the Met Office.

The showers are set to continue on Saturday, but winds should ease and temperatures rise, according to the forecast.

It comes after 70mph gales battered areas in Scotland, the north of England, the Midlands, Wales and Yorkshire this week.

"A good guide here is if people haven't experienced freezing conditions so far, then they're not likely to over the next few days," Mr Madge said.

The lower temperatures have been caused by a cold plunge over North America, which supercharged the jet stream before it raced across the Atlantic, where it helped develop a deep area of low pressure near Iceland.

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This swept across the UK on Thursday, drawing down cold Arctic air behind it.

Weather conditions like this are not unusual for March, with milder temperatures set to return soon, Mr Madge said, adding: "The emphasis really is that we're past the peak of the cold."