The British army has reported a “suspected drone strike“ carried out tonight against a British air base in Cyprus, the Ministry of Defence said after the Israeli-American strikes on Iran.
“Our armed forces are responding to a suspected drone strike on the Royal Air Force base in Akrotiri in Cyprus, carried out at midnight“ local time (and Bulgarian - ed. ed.) said a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence, quoted by AFP. “Our defence system in the region is at the highest level“, he added.
There are no reports of casualties.
The base in Akrotiri - a British overseas territory since Cyprus gained independence in 1960 – is the UK's largest military base in the region.
London has recently deployed additional assets there, including air and drone defence systems, radars and F-35 jets.
The UK has agreed to the United States using British military bases to strike Iranian missile sites, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced yesterday. He added that London would not participate in “offensive action in Iran“.
“We all remember the mistakes made in Iraq and we have learned our lessons“, the British prime minister stressed.
But “Iran is attacking British interests and putting British citizens“ and the country's allies in the region at serious risk, Starmer added. “The only way to end the threat is to destroy the missiles at the source – in storage for storage or the launchers from which they are fired.“