Iran missiles fired towards UK military bases in Cyprus, defence minister says [View all]
Source: The Independent
Sunday 01 March 2026 12:14 GMT
Two missiles from Iran were fired in the direction of Cyprus, where the UK has military bases, the defence secretary has revealed.
John Healey said the government did not believe they were targeting the bases intentionally, but said “it shows how indiscriminate” the Iranian retaliation to Saturday’s US-Israel strikes was. He also said that 300 UK military personnel were close to targets that were hit in Bahrain.
John Healey told Sky News's Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme: "This is a really serious and deteriorating situation, (with) rising risks of increasing Iranian indiscriminate retaliatory attacks. "Let me give you a couple of examples. Yesterday, we had 300 personnel on that Bahrain base that was attacked by Iranian missiles and drones, some of them within a few hundred yards of where they landed.
"We had two missiles fired in the direction of Cyprus. We don't believe they were targeted at Cyprus, but nevertheless, it's an example of how there is a very real and rising threat from a regime that is lashing out widely across the region, and that requires us to act." The revelations came a day after Sir Keir Starmer said the UK had ordered “planes in the sky” over the Middle East on defensive operations to protect our allies.
Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/iran-missiles-cyprus-defence-secretary-b2929655.html
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