Spiritual Enlightenment is #1 Priority for the Human Race – Not AI-Driven War.
Article republished by Jerry Alatalo | April 30, 2026
(Source: ConsortiumNews.com)
[Editor’s note: Here is my response to the article:
Another briefing by Defence Minister Luke Pollard, which was delivered in private but obtained by Declassified, offers additional clues about the role of British satellite operations in the war.
Pollard said last month that artificial intelligence (AI) applications were “helping save lives in the Middle East, protecting British citizens, British bases and British allies across the Gulf.”
He went on to acknowledge that the U.K. government was “using AI to enhance the speed of backfield decision making, to analyse satellite images.”
This effort might be assisted by Palantir, [the data analysis and AI software company], which sponsored a U.K. Space Command conference in 2024 and said it was “pushing AI to the very edge of space in ways that’s never been seen before” while supporting “agile operations for our allies in the U.S. [and] U.K.”
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Criticism of artificial intelligence-driven warfare includes concerns about the loss of human judgment in life-and-death decisions, the opacity of algorithmic decision-making, and the potential for unintended civilian casualties due to errors in targeting. Additionally, there are significant ethical and legal challenges regarding accountability when autonomous systems malfunction or misclassify targets.
(Source: DuckDuckGo “Search Assist” – response to query: “Criticism of artificial intelligence-driven warfare”)
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The Pentagon is aiming to increase funding more than a hundredfold for an autonomous drone warfare program, according to budget documents released this week, signalling a major pivot towards AI-powered war.
In its 2027 budget, the Pentagon has asked for over $54bn to fund the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, a 24,000% increase on last year.
An overview of the budget describes this money as going towards “autonomous and remotely operated systems across air, land, and above and below the sea,” including the “Drone Dominance” program.
The amount is over half the entire defence budget of the UK. In an opinion piece published yesterday, former CIA director David Petraeus said it was “the largest single commitment to autonomous warfare in history”.
(Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/22/pentagon-asks-for-54bn-in-pivot-towards-ai-powered-war)
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The human race needs a healthy dose of spiritual enlightenment as noted by the late Native American spiritual leader Rolling Thunder (1916-1997): “The most basic principle of all is that of not harming others, and that means all people, all life, and all things.”
The LAST thing the human race needs at this pivotal, precarious, wars-and-rumors-of-wars moment in history is soulless, non-discerning, coldly-harmful-and-destructive, autonomous (artificial intelligence-driven) war.
Peace.]
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UK Intel Role in Iran War UK Says It’s Not In
April 30, 2026
Ministry of Defence satellite data analysed by Declassified UK indicate Britain had a more active role in Iran war than ministers admit, Abdullah Farooq and John McEvoy report.
The UK Space Command uniform patch, being worn by personnel at RAF Fylingdales. (Charliehaines /Wikimedia Commons /CC BY-SA 4.0)
By Abdullah Farooq and John McEvoy
Declassified UK
The U.K. government has played a quiet intelligence role in the illegal U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, satellite data analysed by Declassified suggests.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) sent its first earth imaging satellite, named Tyche, into space in August 2024.
The satellite can obtain images with a 90cm resolution within a 5-kilometer imaging swath, enabling the identification of military targets with high resolution.
“The washing machine-sized spacecraft will have sufficient resolution to identify battlefield troop positions and vehicles,” the BBC reported.
Analysis of Tyche’s recent movements indicates the satellite increased passes over Iran before the Twelve-Day War last June as well as the latest conflict.
While the MoD says Tyche’s orbit has not been deliberately altered, the number of passes over Iran spiked from 12 in April last year to 39 in May and 50 in June, representing an overall increase of over 300 percent.
Passes over Iran declined between July and September before increasing again in October to 55, reaching an all-time high of 69 in December and remaining elevated during the 2026 war.
The satellite also passed over some military targets in Iran shortly before they were attacked by the U.S. or Israel.
The information suggests Britain has played a more active intelligence role than ministers admit, and appears to further challenge the government’s claim of only “defensive” participation.
An MoD spokesperson refused to say whether British satellite imagery over Iran had been shared with the U.S. or Israel, citing “intelligence” reasons.
[On April 29, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said:
“My position on the Iran war has been clear from the start. We’re not going to get dragged into this war. It is not our war and a lot of pressure has been applied to me to take a different course… I’m not going to change my mind. I’m not going to yield. It is not in our national interest to join this war and we will not do so. I know where I stand.”
However, the BBC reported that Starmer said on March 6:
“Look, the special relationship is in operation right now. We’re sharing intelligence on a 24/7 basis in the usual way. That is the special relationship.”
Satellite activity
Declassified used open-source two-line element (TLE) data and a propagation algorithm to determine where the satellite had gone since September 2024, and calculated the imaging swath based on the scene width, resolution, and inclination of the satellite.
Two-line element data provides the satellite’s position and timestamp, the algorithm shows where the satellite is in Earth-centered coordinates, and the swath calculation determines where the satellite could have been imaging.
Passes over the earth at night were filtered out, as the satellite is only capable of acquiring daytime imagery.
The results show a high concentration of daytime passes over Iran before and during the Twelve-Day War as well as before and during the latest conflict.
Data show increase in passes over Iran during key moments of geopolitical significance. (Data from space-track.org analysed by Abdullah Farooq)
The data was compared with randomly chosen locations in Mexico and western Europe with the same measurement area to assess if the increase in passes over Iran was not part of a broader trend.
No significant increase was observed in these other areas over the same period.
Open source tracking of airstrikes on Iranian targets was also compared with the calculated imaging swath of the satellite.
This data indicates that Tyche passed over the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Amand missile base just north of Tabriz, the IRGC Aerospace Force’s air defence command in Tehran and the Parachin military complex, shortly before those sites were attacked.
Taken together, the data points to a deliberate decision by the MoD to collect aerial imagery over Iran at key moments of geopolitical significance, consistent with ministerial statements on U.K. Space Command’s support to allies in the region.
The MoD denies altering the movements of Tyche at any point since it was launched, even though the Royal Air Force (RAF) explicitly stated last year that the satellite had “demonstrate[d]” its “ability to capture imagery from anywhere on earth when Defence needs it.”
Satellite imagery taken by Tyche over Heathrow Airport in London. (MoD via Declassified UK)
When asked to clarify the RAF’s statement and explain apparent changes in the Tyche’s orbital trajectory, the MoD stopped responding.
While the U.S. has its own military satellites (many of which are more powerful than Tyche), Britain’s contribution appears to focus on burden sharing and developing operational capacity, particularly in terms of locating, tracking, and intercepting missiles.
Any such intelligence collaboration, moreover, could be part of an effort to placate Trump amid deteriorating diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Britain.
Last month, a parliamentary defence committee issued a cryptic statement based on a secret official briefing about the U.K. government’s role in the war.
It found a “considerable gap between some of the political rhetoric circulating internationally, and the reality of the U.K.’s support to the United States and regional partners”.
‘Monitoring Daily Iranian Missile Activity’
U.K. Defence Secretary John Healey and Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 14. (Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street /Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
The U.K. government has remained guarded about the extent of its intelligence collaboration with the U.S. and Israel amid the war on Iran.
Last month, for instance, the MoD refused to say which countries it was sharing Tyche’s satellite imagery with. Defence Minister Al Carns said: “We cannot comment on the sharing of data from… Tyche satellite with other countries.”
In an overlooked speech from last month, however, U.K. Defence Secretary John Healey admitted that “UK Space Command is monitoring daily Iranian missile activity.”
He added that U.K. Space Command had
“provided early warning to our armed forces and our allies operating across the region.”
As the only MoD-owned aerial imaging satellite, Tyche would seem a primary contender for assisting in such operations.
Another briefing by Defence Minister Luke Pollard, which was delivered in private but obtained by Declassified, offers additional clues about the role of British satellite operations in the war.
Pollard said last month that artificial intelligence (AI) applications were “helping save lives in the Middle East, protecting British citizens, British bases and British allies across the Gulf.”
He went on to acknowledge that the U.K. government was “using AI to enhance the speed of backfield decision making, to analyse satellite images.”
This effort might be assisted by Palantir, [the data analysis and AI software company], which sponsored a U.K. Space Command conference in 2024 and said it was “pushing AI to the very edge of space in ways that’s never been seen before” while supporting “agile operations for our allies in the U.S. [and] U.K.”
This month, the U.K. and U.S. also signed a joint declaration on deepening military cooperation in space.
The statement, signed by senior members of the Royal Air Force and U.S. Space Force, notes that this includes “military collaboration and cooperation in the current threat environment to avoid operational surprise.”
US Dependence
As part of his “Arsenal of Freedom Tour,” U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth tours SpaceX facilities in Brownsville, Texas, with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in January. (DoW/Alexander Kubitza)
While the Tyche is branded as the MoD’s first “wholly owned” earth imaging satellite, it was launched into orbit with the assistance of a SpaceX Falcon rocket flying out of California.
Black Arrow, Britain’s first satellite launch system, was retired in 1971 — making the U.K. the only country to have developed and then abandoned a satellite launch capability.
Recent efforts to build domestic spaceports are yet to result in any successful launches of satellites into orbit, with Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit project in Cornwall going bankrupt after a failed mission.
As a result, satellites owned by the U.K. government — as well as those produced commercially with MoD support — require international assistance to get them into space.
The MoD plans to launch several more spy satellites — including Juno, Oberon, and Titania – in the coming years, all of which appear likely to be launched by SpaceX.
Juno will build on the capabilities of Tyche by also capturing daytime images of the Earth’s surface, “strengthening the U.K.’s Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance capabilities.”
Oberon will use synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) imaging, allowing it to obtain high-resolution imagery during the day and night, providing even deeper surveillance capabilities.
Another MoD satellite, SKYNET 6A, will enhance space-based communications capabilities and serve GCHQ, [Government Communications Headquarters, a U.K. intelligence agency], and is scheduled for launch by SpaceX in 2027.
The reliance on SpaceX raises questions about how sovereign Britain’s satellite capabilities really are, and prompts concerns about dependency on the company and its CEO, Elon Musk.
Musk, a South African resident of the U.S., was revealed to have discussed ways to oust Starmer before the next election, and has emerged as an ally of far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
Similar concerns have even been acknowledged in Whitehall.
In November 2025, a parliamentary report entitled “The Space Economy: Act Now or Lose Out” observed how Musk’s Starlink had threatened to “cut off users to gain political leverage”.
The report recommended that “future plans for UK space capabilities should reckon with the impacts of U.K. dependence on SpaceX and look to ensure access to diversified and/or sovereign services where possible”.
It added: “The government should conduct research on the potential impacts of loss of access to SpaceX services.”
Satellite Wars
Satellites have become a heavy focus of media attention during the war on Iran.
Planet Labs, a California-based satellite imagery company, was asked by the U.S. government last month to restrict “access to images of Iran and large parts of the Middle East.”
The request came amid apparent embarrassment within the Trump administration about the heavy losses incurred to its military and intelligence infrastructure in the region, as well as concerns that the platform could be used to enhance Iran’s intelligence capabilities.
Commercial satellite companies have been sent guidance by the U.S. military on what “language and terms to avoid” when describing damage caused to its bases.
Meanwhile, concerns have been raised about Chinese and Russian satellite support to Iran, indicating that the sharing of satellite imagery may be seen as co-belligerency.
On April 15, for instance, it was reported that the IRGC had “secretly acquired” a Chinese military satellite system.
The Financial Times reported that Iranian military commanders “tasked the satellite to monitor key U.S. military sites” before using it “to guide strikes” against them.
Abdullah Farooq is a researcher and independent journalist. His work focuses on mapping military logistics around the world.
John McEvoy is Chief Reporter for Declassified UK. John is an historian and filmmaker whose work focuses on British foreign policy and Latin America. His PhD was on Britain’s Secret Wars in Colombia between 1948 and 2009, and he is currently working on a documentary about Britain’s role in the rise of Augusto Pinochet.
This article is from Declassified UK.
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