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If President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meet in Singapore on June 12 to talk nukes as planned, a fighting force with a centuries-long reputation for courage and fierceness will reportedly be watching their backs. Authorities in Singapore are planning to call on the Gurkha Contingent of the local police to shoulder some of the summit security burden along with the leaders’ personal security, according to Reuters. The unit recently patrolled a different high-level international meeting that some saw as a dry run for the Trump-Kim meeting. ---snip--- Former British soldier Johnny Fenn, who served with...

'Ronald Reagan issued a last-ditch appeal to Margaret Thatcher to abandon her campaign to retake the Falklands and to hand over the islands to international peacekeepers, according to official documents made public today. Files released by the National Archives at Kew, South West London, under the 30-year rule show that as British troops closed in on final victory, the US president made a late-night phone call to Mrs Thatcher urging her not to completely humiliate the Argentines. However, his request fell on deaf ears as a defiant Prime Minister insisted that she had not sent a British task force across...

January 6 Penniless Gurkhas Turn To UK Charity After Joanna Lumley Campaign Michael Evans Military charities are being swamped by penniless Gurkhas and their families arriving at Heathrow to settle in Britain after the campaign last year to allow them to live in this country. About half a dozen Gurkhas and their families have been arriving every day since before Christmas to take up the offer of residence made by the Government after the campaign led by Joanna Lumley, the actress. Up to 12,000 Gurkhas are expected to apply for settlement in Britain over the next three years. But the...

Gurkhas have lost a bid to overturn a ruling that stopped them automatically settling in the UK after leaving the Army. Those who left the Army before 1997 were not given the right to automatically settle in the UK after four years' service. Last year, a High Court judge ruled that the policy excluding older veterans was unlawful and in need of urgent review. There are currently around 3,500 serving Gurkhas. More than 200,000 fought during the First and Second World Wars, with 43,000 giving their lives. Ragprasad Purja, 43, served with the Gurkhas for 17 years. He said: "It...

A group of retired Gurkhas fighting for the right to settle in Britain have won their immigration test case at London's High Court. They were challenging immigration rules which said that those who retired from the British Army before 1997 did not have an automatic right to stay. The government said it would now review all Gurkhas' cases. The regiment moved its main base from Hong Kong to the UK in 1997 and the government had argued that Gurkhas discharged before that date were unlikely to have strong residential ties with the UK. The judge, Mr Justice Blake, said the...

The debt we owe the Gurkhas Lance Corporal Ram Bahadur Limbu won his Victoria Cross in a mostly forgotten war, the Indonesian Confrontation, in Borneo in 1965. First, he charged a machine-gun nest, knocking it out with a hand grenade. Then he made two forays into open ground to rescue wounded comrades, and another to retrieve a Bren gun. He used it to charge down and kill what was left of the enemy. When I decided to look up Lance Corporal Limbu a few years ago, it was a simple matter to find him – I just went to his...

A Gurkha awarded the highest military award for gallantry in the face of the enemy was at the forefront of a demonstration today to promote the rights of more than 2,000 of the soldiers to stay in Britain. Tul Bahadur Pun VC, 87, a Second World War veteran who is now in a wheelchair, delivered a boardful of medals, including an MBE, to Downing Street in protest over the treatment of Gurkha soldiers. A London hospital refused to treat him for his heart condition, claiming he owed thousands of pounds in unpaid medical bills.

They came in their Sunday best — a sea of tweeds, brogues and blazers with gold buttons — and mingled politely opposite the Houses of Parliament. There was a lot of hip-hooraying and handshaking. It was the most British of protests. But while the thousand retired Gurkhas who gathered in London yesterday were certainly British in heart and mind, theirs was a campaign to become British by law. Last March, the Government said that all the Army’s Nepalese fighters who retired after 1997 would be entitled to pay and pension equal with the rest of the Army and would be...

Bhanubhakta Gurung, VC Last Updated: 2:37am GMT 04/03/2008 Havildar Bhanubhakta Gurung, who has died aged 86, was awarded a VC when serving as a rifleman in the 3rd Battalion of the 2nd Gurkha Rifles in Burma on March 5 1945. At that time the Fourteenth Army was making a drive toward Mandalay in central Burma, and the task of the 25th Division (of which the 2nd Gurkhas were part) was to engage in diversionary action along the coastal sector of Arakan. The 3rd Battalion landed at Ru-Ywa and advanced to the high ground east of Tamandu. Capturing the area would...

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- Canadian soldiers joined the renowned Royal Gurkha Rifles Sunday in a battle to eliminate the source of rocket fire that targeted two Kandahar military outposts. But when the coalition forces showed up, insurgents hiding out at a compound near the Pashmul district shied away from a fight. It's the third joint operation between the Gurkhas -- a highly-praised Nepalese infantry division of the British army -- Canadian soldiers and the Afghan National Army. Around 6 a.m. on Sunday, coalition forces moved toward an insurgent compound, supported by booming rounds of artillery. "We completely overwhelmed the position...

Squadron Leader Terry O’Brien, who has died aged 91, was a brave and outspoken pilot who served with the Chindits and later flew many clandestine sorties in south-east Asia, experiences which he later recounted in a widely-acclaimed trilogy of memoirs.O’Brien had completed a tour of operations flying bombers in England and survived the Japanese advance on Singapore and Java when he volunteered to join the 4/9th Gurkha Rifles assigned to General Orde Wingate’s Long Range Penetration Group, better known as the Chindits.He was appointed the battalion’s air liaison officer and, after an arduous six-month training period, landed by glider with...

A band of former soldiers, ex-police personnel and victims of Maoist guerrillas have united in Nepal to form a Hindu army with suicide bombers to fight Islamic and Christian zealots as well as communists. Called the Nepal Defence Army, the group is headed by a former policeman who says he joined the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist as a schoolboy but has now begun waging war on his former comrades. The ex-cop, who today calls himself 'Parivartan' (change), claims his band has nearly 1,200 trained soldiers who possess arms and have the expertise to manufacture explosives. Earlier this year,...

The Gurkhas were never supposed to fire a shot in anger in Helmand. Their main duty was to protect the main British Army base at Camp Bastion.But as British forces found themselves fighting a full-scale war, the Gurkhas were thrust into the front line and became involved in some of the fiercest fire fights of the summer-long campaign. One of the most dramatic engagements took place in the town of Nawzad, a key strategic post in southern Helmand. The Gurkha commanders realised that trouble was brewing when the town centre emptied of civilians. As night fell they heard the sounds...

British forces' determination is undermining rebel credibilityBRITISH forces in Afghanistan insist that despite the surprising toughness of Taleban fighters they are more than up to the task. “This is what the Army is meant to do,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart Tootal, commanding officer of 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, whose troops make up the bulk of the 4,300 troops Britain has in Helmand province. The fiercest battles the troops have faced have taken place in Sangin, Nauzad, Musa Qala and Kajaki, all in the north of the province. In these towns the British are based in platoon houses, administrative centres that...

weapons training Pushups the Gorkha way Celebrating the end of training the Gorkha way by cutting the neck of a goat in one stroke Soldier paying tribute to his comrades killed in battle in Kashmir insurgency Soldier going through the punishment drill for failing to meet the exacting standards set by the Gorkhas during training Soldier sharpning his khukri, Gorkha knife Gorkha commandoes fighting no holds barred full contact karate Soldier singing cadence going through the drill Giving the Gorkha war shout Soldier being trained in rappelling for mountain warfare Soldier training on the obstacle course come rain or shine...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Four Nepalese nationals who once served with Britain's elite Gurkha army regiment were killed and 12 wounded Thursday in a rocket attack on Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone, their employer said. The attack, one of the deadliest on the central Baghdad compound which houses the nation's key institutions, was claimed in an Internet statement by the Al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sunna militant group. London-based security firm Global Risk Control said the four were killed and another 12 wounded in a rocket attack on one of its sites. "All fatalities were former Gurkhas as are all the casualties, each of...

Around 300 Gurkha troops are being sent to Ivory Coast to help take Britons fleeing the strife-torn West African country to safety. Members of the Army's Spearhead Lead Company, drawn from the Royal Gurkha Regiment, flew to the Ghanaian capital Accra last night where they were put on "immediate notice" to move into Ivory Coast. Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, announced the deployment in a written statement to the Commons. He added that the assault ship HMS Albion, which can carry up to 700 troops and 60 vehicles, had been redirected towards the region as an "additional contingency". Mr Hoon...

POKHARA, Nepal – Ayo Gurkhali! It is an ancient battle cry that has terrified the enemies of the British Empire from the heady days of the East India Company to the more recent battles over the Falkland Islands, a cry that proudly identifies the famed mercenary soldiers known as the Gurkhas. "To gain acceptance into the 3,700-strong British Gurkha Brigade is a sign of both prestige and financial success," said Lavlit Shrestha, a farmer who lives outside Pokhara. Shrestha, who stands 5 feet 4 inches, like most Gurkha men, wants his 15-year-old son Narayan to pass the upcoming Gurkha selection...

Gurkhas rescue Afghan governor from warlord's gunmen By Hamida Ghafour in Kabul. (Filed: 11/04/2004) A contingent of British Army Gurkhas last week rescued an Afghan governor from a mansion overrun by forces loyal to a warlord allied to the international coalition. General Rashid Dostum As crowds rampaged through the grounds, eight men of the Royal Gurkha Rifles battled through the chaos into the mansion where Enayatullah Enayat, the governor of the remote Faryab Province, had taken refuge. Outside the front gate, troops loyal to the regional strongman, Abdul Rashid Dostum, set fire to the Gurkhas' vehicle, forcing them to bundle...

Britain has sent about 100 special forces to Afghanistan as the hunt for Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri heats up, an airport official says. The official, who asked not to be named, says the British soldiers arrived at Kabul International Airport on March 10 and left the same night for an unknown destination. British special forces "looking like SAS" embarked from their plane and waited on the tarmac until nightfall before taking off in their vehicles. A spokesman for the British embassy in Kabul says he is unable to comment on operations involving special forces. Britain...