British Defense Secretary John Healey said on Sunday that “indiscriminate Iranian retaliation” to the US-Israeli attacks included “two ballistic missiles fired in the direction of Cyprus”, although he was “pretty sure” they were not the target.
Healey said the attacks showed how British military personnel and civilians were “at risk from a regime that is increasingly indiscriminate, widespread and rampant in its attacks on the rise”.
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His statement came as a video emerged on social media purporting to show activity in the skies near RAF Akrotiri.
“We had two ballistic missiles fired towards Cyprus,” John Healey told the BBC. He noted that British warplanes were involved in “defensive” actions in the region, operating from a British air base on the island and from a base in Qatar.
“We are now quite sure that they were not aimed at Cyprus, but it still shows how at risk our bases, our personnel, the military and civilians are,” he said, according to AFP, without giving further details about the missiles and their interception.
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A spokesman for the Cypriot government later said Sir Keir “clearly confirmed that Cyprus was not a target” during a phone call with the country’s president, Nikos Christodoulides, the BBC reported.
What else did John Healey claim?
On Sunday, an RAF Typhoon aircraft operating from Qatar shot down an Iranian drone in a “defensive air patrol”, the Ministry of Defense said.
He accused Tehran of being “still indiscriminate, widespread and unchecked in the attacks that are piling up.”
Healey revealed the previously undisclosed missile incidents as pointing to a “truly serious and deteriorating situation” in the Middle East and “growing risks of increasing Iranian indiscriminate retaliatory attacks”.
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“It’s an example of how there is a very real and growing threat from the regime that is broadly across the region, and that requires us to act. It requires us to act defensively,” he told Sky News in a separate interview on Sunday.
“Along with the Americans, we have strengthened our defense forces in the Middle East. We fly those sorties. We take down drones that threaten either our bases, our people or our allies,” Healey said.
John Healey also told the BBC “no one will mourn” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed during US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran.
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Healey also claimed in the interview that since the attacks began, British military personnel in Bahrain were “within a few hundred yards” of a missile and drone retaliatory strike on Saturday, while two missiles were fired in the direction of Cyprus.
“We had 300 British personnel at that Bahrain military base that was hit by missiles and drones yesterday, some within a few hundred yards of the strike,” Healey told the BBC.
He further clarified that the UK was not involved in the strikes and that it was up to the US to establish the legal basis for its actions.
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When asked whether the UK supported the US-Israeli attacks on Iran or thought they were legal, Healey said that although the UK did not take part in the attacks, “we share the primary objective of all allies in the region and the US that Iran should never have a nuclear weapon”.
(With inputs from the BBC)
