AKROTIRI, Cyprus (AP) — Britain is not at war, the government said Monday, despite saying it would allow the U.S. to use British bases during its war with Iran and after a Royal Air Force base in Cyprus was struck by an Iranian-made drone.
Sirens sounded again at RAF Akrotiri on Monday and British Typhoon and F-35 warplanes were scrambled. Cyprus government spokesman Constantinos Letymbiotis posted on X that two drones heading toward the British base had been intercepted.
More than two decades after Britain followed the United States into a devastating war in Iraq, it is trying to avoid being drawn into a new Middle East conflict with unpredictable consequences.
Akrotiri attacked
U.K. officials say an attack drone hit the runway at RAF Akrotiri, a British air force base in Cyprus, late Sunday. There were no injuries and “minimal” damage, but the strike brought the conflict onto European soil.
Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides identified it as a “Shahed-type” Iranian drone. It was not immediately clear whether it was launched from Iran or by a Tehran-backed militant group such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Akrotiri is the U.K.’s main air base for operations in the Middle East and in recent years has been used by British warplanes on missions against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq and to strike Houthi targets in Yemen.
As tensions between the U.S. and Iran mounted, Britain last month deployed extra F-35 fighter jets to Akrotiri, along with radar, counter-drone systems and air defenses.
Britain retained the base, and another on Cyprus, after the eastern Mediterranean island gained independence from British colonial rule in 1960.
It was last attacked in 1986, when pro-Libya militants struck the base with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms, injuring three dependents of British personnel. The latest attack is believed to be the first attack on Cyprus from outside the country since Turkey’s invasion of the island in 1974.
Britain’s defense ministry said families of U.K. personnel who live on the base were being moved to nearby accommodation as a precaution.
Some residents of the nearby village of Akrotiri also opted to leave their homes and spend the night with relatives elsewhere.
Villager Mikaella Malta said she heard “strange noises” just before the drone explosion.
“We tried to figure out what was going on. We then picked up whatever we could from home. We were in a panic and we left,” she told the AP.
U.K. ambivalence
British officials have refused to say whether the U.K. supports the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. They have said that Iran should not be able to have a nuclear weapon and called for an end to Iranian strikes and a diplomatic solution.
Britain did not take part in the strikes on Iran that began Saturday, and did not allow the U.S. to use U.K. bases in England or on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
But on Sunday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that he had agreed to let the U.S. use the bases for attacks on Iran’s missiles and their launch sites. He said the change came in response to Iranian attacks on U.K. interests and Britain’s allies in the Gulf, and is legal under international law.
Britain says its bases can’t be used for attacks on political and economic targets in Iran, and Starmer said the U.K. is “not joining the U.S. and Israeli offensive strikes.”
U.S. President Donald Trump told the Daily Telegraph on Monday he was “very disappointed in Keir,” saying the prime minister “took far too long” to change his mind about the use of British bases.
Unpredictable consequences
Starmer said Britain would not be joining the U.S.-Israeli strikes, and Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer stressed that “the U.K. is not at war.”
The memory of Iraq remains raw for many in Britain. The decision by then-Prime Minister Tony Blair to join the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 remains one of the most contentious in modern British history.
The subsequent yearslong conflict killed 179 British troops, some 4,500 American personnel and many thousands of Iraqis.
“We all remember the mistakes of Iraq and we have learned those lessons,” Starmer told lawmakers in the House of Commons on Monday. “Any U.K. actions must always have a lawful basis and a viable, thought-through plan.”
Critics say attempts to set firm limits on Britain’s involvement in Iran could be swept away by a fast-moving conflict.
“We are being drawn in, just as we were in Iraq, following the U.S. into an incredibly dangerous situation,” said John McDonnell, a lawmaker from the governing Labour Party.
Patrick Bury, senior associate professor in security at the University of Bath, said Britain is in an “incredibly difficult” position.
“We’ve had very little explanation for this war, really, from the U.S.,” he said. “The U.K. policy is always heavily on upholding international law. So they’re kind of looking at this going, ‘How does this fit with our own foreign policy?’ And I think that explains why they’ve held off as much as they could.
“And nevertheless, they get a direct request. What are you going to do, say no?”
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Lawless reported from London.
