A major international incident was narrowly averted this week following the hostile kidnapping of an American citizen, now known as the Waterstones one.
Barack Obama told a packed press conference that relations between the UK and the USA had become strained following the kidnapping and said that locking one of its citizens in a bookstore crossed “a red line”.
Despite the man’s release shortly after his capture, Obama would not rule out taking further military action against the group responsible.
“Our intelligence services point to Waterstones having an training camp disguised as a shop in most major towns and cities in the UK,” the 44th President said.
“This is a huge threat to Americans visiting the UK, especially around closing time. We are looking into strategic drone strikes against the group, or the deployment of loud tourists.
“The UK has apologised for the incident and asked that we resume our special friendship in the interests of beating the threat from ISIS, however we do not negotiate with kidnappers.”
British prime minister David Cameron confirmed he has had a meeting with the American ambassador to explain the UK’s position but said any retaliatory action would be met with a fresh bombardment of apologies and possibly cake.
This is the second time the countries have fallen out in such a novel way. Last year the UK complained to the UN after a british citizen was trapped for eight days in the Amazon Kindle store.
