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Margaret Thatcher held secret talks with Saudi rulers in 1985, leading up to the UK’s largest arms deal, newly released official documents show.

The then prime minister met King Fahd five months before the first instalment of the £40bn Al-Yamamah deal was agreed to sell Tornados and other aircraft. At the time, officials said the meeting focused on peace in the Middle East. But Foreign Office papers indicate the visit was actually intended to “smoke out” the Saudis over arms contracts.

Newly declassified documents from the mid-1980s give a fresh insight into the Thatcher government’s immense efforts to sell British Tornados and other aircraft to Saudi Arabia. The Al-Yamamah arms deal, first agreed in September 1985, has been worth at least £40bn to defence giant BAE Systems and their partners, securing thousands of jobs. But it has also been tainted by allegations of slush-fund payments to members of the Saudi royal family.

Secrecy has always played a large part in arms sales, and the papers from 1985 newly released by the National Archives include letters between senior civil servants in Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) that highlight the need for secrecy as the UK pressed the Saudis to opt for the British Tornado fighters over intense competition, particularly from France. At the centre of the correspondence is a crucial visit the prime minister made to see the Saudi King Fahd on 14 April in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, brokered by Prince Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud – then Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the US.

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A dozen Turkish tanks have rolled across the Syrian border after heavy shelling of an area held by so-called Islamic State.

Military sources told Turkish media 70 targets in the Jarablus area had been destroyed by artillery and rocket strikes, and 12 by air strikes. Turkish special forces entered Syria earlier as part of the offensive.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the operation was aimed against both IS and Kurdish fighters. Turkey shelled Syrian Kurdish forces in the region this week, determined not to let them fill the vacuum if IS leaves.

The concern in Ankara is that the Kurds could create an autonomous area close to the border which might foster Kurdish separatism within Turkey itself, our correspondent says.

In another development, counter-terror police in Turkey’s main city, Istanbul, launched dawn raids targeting IS suspects across the city, Turkey’s Dogan news agency reports. US Vice-President Joe Biden arrived in Turkey on Wednesday in the highest-ranking visit by a Western official since the failed coup on 15 July.

According to a photographer for the AFP news agency, the tanks were followed by several smaller military vehicles believed to be carrying Turkish-backed Syrian rebels. “At 04:00 [01:00 GMT] our forces began an operation against the Daesh [IS] and PYD [Kurdish Democratic Union Party] terror groups,” President Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara.

The offensive is aimed at “putting an end” to problems on the border, he said.

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A 21-year-old British woman has died after she was stabbed during an attack at a backpackers’ hostel in Australia.

The victim has been named locally as Mia Ayliffe-Chung, who is believed to be from Derbyshire. A 30-year-old British man was also severely injured in the attack, near Townsville, in Queensland.

A French suspect, 29, who allegedly said the Arabic phrase “Allahu akbar” during the attack, has been arrested. Police said they were investigating a number of possible motivations, including drugs misuse, mental health issues and extremism.

The stabbing took place at Shelley’s Backpackers in Home Hill – a small town which is popular among travellers looking to do agricultural work, such as fruit picking. It is located about 100km south-east of the city of Townsville. The injured man remains in Townsville Base Hospital in a critical condition. A dog was also killed in the attack and a 46-year-old local man sustained minor injuries.

It is understood Miss Ayliffe-Chung travelled to Bali before arriving in Australia. After completing a period of bar work, it is believed she had been working on a farm for three days before she was killed. She had been posting diary entries and pictures on Facebook, sharing her experiences with friends. Amy Browne, 19, from the Gold Coast, who worked as a bartender at the Bedroom Lounge Bar where Miss Ayliffe-Chung was a waitress, said: “Mia was honestly the most bubbliest and most caring girl I knew. “She got along with everyone she met, she just had that gorgeous personality that everyone seemed to enjoy. “She always had a smile on her face, so innocent and full of life and love. Our memories will be cherished forever and I know she’d want us all to stay positive in the darkest of times.”

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Attacks by Islamist militants, strikes and floods have caused a big fall in tourism in Paris.

There were a million fewer visitors between January and June compared with the same period in 2015. Paris welcomes 16 million visitors a year and is one of the world’s top tourist destinations.

The drop is estimated to have cost about €750m (£644m) in lost revenue. One senior official described it as “an industrial disaster”.

France relies heavily on tourism, which generates more than 7% of its annual GDP. About half-a-million people in the Ile-de-France region, which includes Paris, have jobs linked to tourism, making it the biggest employer in the area.

France’s tourism industry has dipped sharply since gunmen from the so-called Islamic State killed 130 people in the November Paris attack.

The city was only just beginning to recover from an attack in January 2015 on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Tourist board figures show that nightly hotel stays were down 8.5% in the Ile-de-France region in the first half of 2016, with an 11.5% decline in foreign tourists and a 4.8% decline in French tourists. The board says that even the staging of the European football championships failed to arrest the decline.

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A soldier has died after being shot at a military training area in Northumberland, police have said.

The male soldier, serving with the Royal Regiment of Scotland, was shot on the military ranges in Otterburn during a live firing exercise at about 23:15 BST on Monday. Northumbria Police said the soldier sustained a “serious head wound” and was pronounced dead at the scene. He has not been identified by the Ministry of Defence.

An MOD spokesman said the Defence Safety Authority was investigating. It said there were no details on whether any other personnel were involved.

Armed Forces Minister Mike Penning said: “My thoughts are with the soldier’s family, friends and colleagues at this difficult time. “The safety of our personnel is our absolute priority and while deaths in training don’t happen often, any death is a tragedy. “As well as a police investigation, MOD accident investigators are looking into the circumstances surrounding this tragic incident.”

A police cordon is in place at the training area and the soldier’s next-of-kin have been informed, police say. The force said no arrests had been made.

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