UK defense minister heads to Cyprus amid Middle East war

AFP :

Britain’s defense minister John Healey is headed to Cyprus, a defense source told AFP, after a drone strike on a UK air base on the Mediterranean island.

Healey was due to arrive later Thursday, the source said.

The visit comes after the runway of the Royal Air Force (RAF) base at Akrotiri came under attack by an Iranian-made unmanned drone on Monday.

Starmer said Tuesday the UK was sending “helicopters with counter drone capabilities” and a warship, HMS Dragon, to Cyprus as Britain continued “defensive operations” in the region.

HMS Dragon is one of the Royal Navy’s six Type 45 air defense destroyers.

It is fitted with a Sea Viper missile system able to launch eight missiles in under 10 seconds and guide up to 16 missiles simultaneously, Britain’s defense ministry said.

The helicopters are Wildcat helicopters equipped with Martlet missiles that can destroy drones.

On Wednesday, Cyprus’s High Commissioner to the UK Dr. Kyriacos Kouros, said Cypriots were “disappointed” at the level of information-sharing with residents after RAF Akrotiri was hit and further drones intercepted.

“Let’s say the people are disappointed, the people are scared, the people could expect more,” he told the BBC’s Newsnight program.

Starmer initially refused to have any role in the US-Israeli war with Iran but later agreed to a US request to use two British military bases for a “specific and limited defensive purpose.”

Those bases are in Gloucestershire, western England, and the UK-US Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean.

Starmer has insisted that the Akrotiri base is not being used by US bombers.
Monday’s drone strike there caused minimal damage and no casualties, said British officials.

Service personnel’s families have been moved away from the base as a precaution.