A British military base in Cyprus was attacked by an unmanned Iranian drone on Monday amid the US-Israel war against Iran, and authorities issued preventive evacuation orders for the surrounding area.
The area around the Mediterranean island base on the southern coast was evacuated, the Cypriot Interior Ministry said. Paphos airport in western Cyprus was also evacuated but was later given the all-clear and was operating normally, an airport official said.
The precautionary evacuations came after two drones heading towards the Akrotiri base were also intercepted on Monday.
More than 60 flights were canceled at Larnaca and Paphos airports, the official added. Larnaca, on the southeast coast, was also operating normally.
Families of air force personnel were evacuated, the UK Ministry of Defense told AFP, although the base continued to operate as normal.
Damage was “minimal” and there were no casualties, authorities said.
British Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer insisted the nation was “not at war.”
“Let me be very clear: the UK made a deliberate decision not to be part of the first wave of attacks carried out by the US and Israeli governments,” he said.
“But in the face of Iran’s reckless attacks… we made the decision, as the Prime Minister announced last night, to support the United States’ request to use our bases to carry out defensive actions.”
Lessons learned from Iraq
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Sunday night that he had agreed to a US request to use British military bases for “specific and limited defensive purposes”, having previously made a “deliberate” decision not to participate.
He said the mistakes of the Iraq war had been “learned.”
The initial decision not to back the United States drew the ire of US President Donald Trump, who said he was “very disappointed” with Starmer’s decision.
Trump, in an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, described the prime minister’s subsequent decision to allow the use of bases for specific reasons as “helpful” but said it “took too long.”
“President Trump has expressed his disagreement with our decision not to engage in the initial attacks,” Starmer said after Trump criticized him.
“But it is my duty to judge what is in Britain’s national interest. That is what I have done and I stand by it.”
‘Reckless’
Starmer said on Monday that the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had led Iran to attack regional military and economic targets in a “reckless” manner.
Khamenei’s death “will not stop Iran from launching these attacks,” Starmer told parliament. “In fact, their approach is becoming even more reckless and more dangerous to civilians.”
Any potential military action in the Middle East is politically sensitive in the UK following former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s disastrous support for the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Evie Aspinall, director of the British think tank Foreign Policy Group, said the UK would not want to be “seen as a key party to this conflict”.
“Defensive, not offensive, attacks are therefore permitted, although the difference between the two is, in practice, often minimal,” he said.
Greece said it would send two frigates and two F-16 fighter jets to Cyprus. Athens will help Cyprus “counter threats and illegal actions on its territory,” the Defense Ministry said.
Defense Minister Nikos Dendias also said he would travel to Cyprus on Tuesday.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said the incident shortly after midnight (2200 GMT) involved “a Shahed unmanned aerial vehicle.”
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the UK government was “working on every possible option” to help its citizens in the region return home if necessary.
“There are an estimated 300,000 British citizens in the Gulf countries who have now been attacked by Iran, including countries where airspace is now closed,” he told Sky News.
More than 100,000 UK citizens have so far registered their presence in the region, Cooper said.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
