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Tony Blair overstated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, sent ill-prepared troops into battle and had «wholly inadequate» plans for the aftermath, the UK’s Iraq War inquiry has said.

Chairman Sir John Chilcot said the 2003 invasion was not the «last resort» action presented to MPs and the public. There was no «imminent threat» from Saddam — and the intelligence case was «not justified», he said.

Mr Blair apologised but insisted that lives had not be lost «in vain».

The report, which has taken seven years, is on the Iraq Inquiry website.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who voted for war in 2003, told MPs it was important to «really learn the lessons for the future» and to improve the workings of government and how it treats legal advice. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn — who voted against military action — said the report proved the Iraq War had been an «act of military aggression launched on a false pretext», something he said which has «long been regarded as illegal by the overwhelming weight of international opinion».

A spokesman for some of the families of the 179 British service personnel and civilians killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2009 said their loved ones had died «unnecessarily and without just cause and purpose». He said all options were being considered, including asking those responsible for the failures identified in the report to «answer for their actions in the courts if such process is found to be viable».

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Kenyan lawyer Willie Kimani was tortured before being killed and his body dumped in a river, a pathologist has said in court.

Mr Kimani, his client and their driver were abducted last month after filing a complaint against the police. Their bodies were found a week later. Four police officers have been arrested — they have not commented. There have been nationwide protests, with complaints that extrajudicial killings are widespread.

Pathologist Andrew Gachie said Mr Kimani had 14 injuries to various parts of his body. His skull and genitals had been crushed and he died from blunt force trauma to his head, the pathologist’s report said.

Mr Kimani’s client Josephat Mwendwa died from head, neck and chest injuries. Their driver Joseph Muiruri had had a rope tied round his neck and died from strangulation.

Mr Mwendwa had filed a complaint saying he had been wrongfully shot by police. The Law Society of Kenya is calling for the resignation of the police chief and the internal security minister.

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French intelligence services should be overhauled following last year’s terror attacks in Paris, a parliamentary commission of inquiry has recommended.

Commission president Georges Fenech said all the French attackers had been known to authorities, but these had not communicated with each other. He proposed a single body like the US National Counter-Terrorism Centre.

The January and November attacks, which killed 147 people in all, prompted criticism of the security response. «Faced with the threat of international terrorism we need to be much more ambitious… in terms of intelligence,» said Mr Fenech.

The committee chairman George Fenech says the aim of the report is not to designate guilty parties, but to make the general point that France’s intelligence system failed. All three of the of the attackers at the Bataclan, for example, were known to the security services and yet all trace of them had been lost. Part of the problem, the committee says, is a multiplicity of competing agencies and no clear vision of which does what.

For example, the national police and gendarmes have separate intelligence arms and the Paris police have a third, with the result that when one of the Charlie Hebdo attackers moved from Paris some time before the attacks, he disappeared from the radar. The six intelligence agencies currently operating in France should be merged into a single agency directly under the prime minister’s authority, the commission said. This would improve information-sharing and make it easier for foreign agencies to know who to deal with. It listed a series of mistakes, including the failure to track known extremist Amedy Coulibaly — who took hostages at Jewish supermarket two days after the Charlie Hebdo attack — after his release from prison.

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A second human foot has been discovered close to the spot where another was found just months ago.

The left foot was found among undergrowth on a property in Weston Park, Bath, on Monday morning.

Police said they were linking the find to another left foot, which was found in a park in February, due to their «physical similarities» and close proximity of the discoveries.

The first foot was probably a teaching aid, detectives said. Forensic examinations found it was «probably an anatomical specimen» from a medical or educational establishment and police concluded no crime had been committed. Det Insp Paul Catton said: «We carried out a full and thorough investigation into the discovery of the first foot and the same will be done for this one. «We will be looking to confirm beyond all reasonable doubt that the two discoveries are linked and if so, whether the most recent find offers any lines of inquiry which can be taken forward. «Our earlier investigation exhausted all possible lines of inquiry and we were satisfied that no crime had been committed.»

Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body has denounced the three suicide attacks in the kingdom on Monday, including one near Islam’s second holiest site.

The Senior Council of Ulema said the bombers had «violated everything that is sacred». Four guards were killed near the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, while only the bombers died in Jeddah and Qatif.

No group has yet said it was behind the attacks, but suspicion has fallen on so-called Islamic State (IS). The Sunni Muslim jihadist group has called for the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy and its supporters have previously carried out bombings in the Gulf state, targeting the Shia minority community and security forces. IS has also claimed, or been blamed for, a series of deadly attacks in the predominantly Muslim countries of Turkey, Bangladesh and Iraq during the holy month of Ramadan.

In Monday’s first bombing, two security officers were wounded when a man detonated an explosive vest he was wearing near the US consulate in the coastal city of Jeddah shortly after midnight.

An interior ministry spokesman identified the assailant as a 35-year-old Pakistani expatriate called Abdullah Qalzar Khan, who it said had worked as a private driver in Jeddah for 12 years.

Saudi Twitter users were quick to blame so-called Islamic State for the Medina attack. Using an acronym based on the jihadist group’s previous name, more than 200,000 had used the Arabic hashtag «#Daesh_Violates_Prophet’s_Mosque» within 12 hours. Media personality Waleed al-Farraj wrote: «O Daeshi [man who belongs to IS], you will not find any holy text or Hadith [the words and actions of the Prophet Muhammad] accepting the killing of a Muslim 200 metres away from the burial place of God’s Messenger.» @Naifco, said: «The more their criminality increases, the more we will come together», while @AzzamAlDakhil wrote: «The attack on Medina is an attack on a stronghold of Islam. No one dares to attack it unless he has lost faith and mind».

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