Britain says it's not at war after a drone strikes its Akrotiri base in Cyprus

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Britain says it's not at war after a drone strikes its Akrotiri base in Cyprus

2026-03-02 20:05 Last Updated At：20:10

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 warplanes were scrambled, apparently in response to a new threat.

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.

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.

It was not immediately clear whether the drone was launched from Iran or by a Tehran-backed militant group such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Some 12 hours later, sirens sounded again as two Typhoon fighter jets and a pair of F-35 warplanes roared into the air. A resident showed to The Associated Press a text message sent from base authorities warning of an “ongoing security threat” and urging people to stay indoors and away from windows.

The Cypriot government said two drones headed for Cyprus were intercepted on Monday.

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.

Britain retained the base, and another on Cyprus, after the eastern Mediterranean island gained independence from British colonial rule in 1960.

It was previously attacked in 1986, when Libyan militants struck the base with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms, injuring three people.

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, as part of “defensive measures.”

Britain’s defense ministry said Monday that families of U.K. personnel who live on the base were being moved to nearby accommodation as a precaution.

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.

“We are not joining these strikes,” Starmer stressed, “but we will continue with our defensive actions in the region.”

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.

“The U.K. is not at war,” Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer said Monday. He told the BBC Iran has ballistic missiles “pointed at the Gulf and it is vital that those missile launchers are taken out in the face of these completely reckless attacks.”

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.

The current government is keen to prevent that happening again, but critics say that attempts to set firm limits on Britain’s involvement 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.

Lawless reported from London.

War widens to include Iranian-backed militias as Israeli and American planes pound Iran

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran and allied armed groups fired missiles at Israel, Arab states and U.S. military targets around the region on Monday, while Israel and the United States pounded Iran as the war expended to several fronts. Kuwait mistakenly shot down three American warplanes over its skies.

The intensity of the attacks on both sides, the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the lack of any apparent exit plan indicated the conflict would not end any time soon. It was already have far-reaching consequences across the region and beyond: Previously safe havens in the Mideast like Dubai have seen incoming fire; hundreds of thousands of airline passengers are stranded around the globe; oil prices shot up; and U.S. allies pledged to help stop Iranian missiles and drones.

If attacked, Iran has long threatened to drag the region into total war, including targeting Israel the Gulf Arab states and the flow of crude oil crucial for global energy markets. All these things came under attack on Monday.

QatarEnergy, in fact, said it would stop its production of liquefied natural gas because of the conflict, taking one of the world’s top suppliers off the market. It offered no timeline for restoring its production.

The chaos of the conflict became apparent when the U.S. military said Kuwait had “mistakenly shot down” three American F-15E Strike Eagles during a combat mission while attacks from Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles, and drones were underway. U.S. Central Command said all six pilots ejected safely and are in stable condition.

At least 555 people have been killed in Iran so far by the U.S.-Israeli campaign, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said, and more than 130 cities across the country having come under attack. Eleven people have been killed in Israel and 31 in Lebanon, according to authorities there.

Lebanon's government said Hezbollah’s overnight attack against Israel were “illegal” and demanded the group handle over its weapons. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said only the state can decide whether to go to war or peace, and called on the Lebanese military to prevent the firing of projectiles and detain anyone involved.

In Kuwait, fire and smoke rose from inside the U.S. Embassy compound.

On Monday afternoon, multiple airstrikes hit Tehran, Iran’s capital, while top Iranian security official Ali Larijani vowed on X that “we will not negotiate with the United States.”

In Iraq, a pro-Iranian militia claimed responsibility for a drone attack targeting U.S. troops at the Baghdad airport, the day after it said it fired at a U.S. base in the city of Irbil in the north, and Cyprus said a drone attack targeted a British base on the Mediterranean island nation.

Israel and the U.S. bombed Iranian missile sites and targeted its navy, claiming to have destroyed its headquarters and multiple warships.

World markets were rattled by the fighting and oil prices soared.

Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura oil refinery came under a drone attack on Monday, with defenses downing the incoming aircraft, a military spokesman told the state-run Saudi Press Agency.

Online videos from the site appeared to show thick black smoke rising after the attack. Even successfully intercepted drones cause debris that can spark fires and injure those on the ground.

Ras Tanura, near the city of Dammam in eastern Saudi Arabia, is one of the world's largest with a capacity over half a million barrels of crude oil a day. It was temporarily shut down as a precaution after the attack, Saudi state television reported.

Oman said a bomb-carrying drone boat exploded against Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman on Monday, off the coast of the sultanate's capital of Muskat, killing one mariner. The state-run Oman News Agency said the dead crew member was from India.

Earlier in the day, debris fell on Kuwait's Ahmadi oil refinery, injuring two workers, after drones were shot down, the state-run KUNA news agency reported.

Iran’s decision to expands its attacks to major regional oil infrastructure adds a new element to the war gripping the Middle East, directly targeting the lifeblood of the area's economy.

“The attack on Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura refinery marks a significant escalation, with Gulf energy infrastructure now squarely in Iran’s sights,” said Torbjorn Soltvedt, an analyst at the risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.

“An extended period of uncertainty lies ahead as Iran seeks to impose a heavy economic cost by putting tankers, regional energy infrastructure, trade routes and U.S. security partners in the crosshairs,” he added.

Iran has also threatened ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil traded passes. Several ships have been attacked as well there.

Iran’s Ambassador to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, Reza Najafi, told reporters that the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes had targeted Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment site on Sunday.

“Again they attacked Iran’s peaceful safeguarded nuclear facilities yesterday,” he said. “Their justification that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons is simply a big lie.”

Israel and the U.S. have not acknowledged strikes at the site, which the U.S. bombed back in the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June. The Israeli military also did not immediately comment on Najafi's allegation.

Israel has not publicized specific targets in Iran but has said that it is targeting “leadership and nuclear infrastructure.”

As the attacks on Iran continued, Hezbollah said it fired missiles from Lebanon into Israel early Monday in response to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and “repeated Israeli aggressions.” There were no reports of injuries or damage, and Israel said that it had intercepted one projectile while several fell in open areas.

Israel retaliated with strikes on Lebanon, killing at least 31 people and wounding 149 others, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. About two thirds of the dead were in the country's south.

Lebanon’s government said it was holding an emergency meeting after Hezbollah’s attack on Israel triggered the Israeli airstrikes.

Iran has been firing missiles at Israel and Arab states in a counteroffensive since the joint America-Israeli attack Saturday that killed Khamenei and many top Iranian officials.

Gulf Arab states have warned that they could retaliate against Iran after strikes that hit key sites and killed at least five civilians, and U.S. President Donald Trump promised Washington would “avenge” the deaths of three American troops who were killed in Kuwait, while predicting more casualties.

“Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends,” Trump said. “That’s the way it is.”

Trump has urged Iranians to “take over” their government and, while he has also signaled he would be open to dialogue with new leadership there following the death of Khamenei, suggested Sunday there was no end in sight to the military operations.

“Combat operations continue at this time in full-force, and they will continue until all of our objectives are achieved,” he said in a video message. “We have very strong objectives,” he added, without elaborating.

The U.S. military said B-2 stealth bombers struck Iran’s ballistic missile facilities with 2,000-pound bombs. Trump said on social media that nine Iranian warships had been sunk and that the Iranian navy’s headquarters had been “largely destroyed.”

Others have mostly stayed out of the war and pressed for diplomacy. But in an indication that the conflict could draw in other nations, Britain, France and Germany said Sunday they were ready to work with the U.S. to help stop Iran’s attacks.

Early Monday, Cyprus said an uncrewed drone “caused limited damage” when it hit a British air base on the southern coast. Further details were not immediately available, but it came after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the U.K. would help the U.S. in the war against Iran.

The weekend attacks were the second time in eight months that the U.S. and Israel had combined against Iran, in a startling show of military might for an American president elected on an “America First” platform and pledged to keep out of “forever wars.”

In the 12-day war last June, Israeli and American strikes greatly weakened Iran’s air defenses, military leadership and nuclear program. But the killing of Khamenei, who ruled Iran for more than three decades, creates a leadership vacuum, increasing the risk of regional instability.

Hezbollah’s launch of missiles at Israel was the first time in more than a year that the militant group has claimed an attack. Israel said Hezbollah had “joined the campaign” alongside Iran as it retaliated with strikes on Beirut, Lebanon's capital.

Associated Press journalists in Beirut were jolted awake Monday by a series of loud explosions that shook buildings and caused windows to shatter. Warplanes could be heard flying low overhead.

“The strikes continue,” said Maj. Gen. Rafi Milo, head of Israel’s Northern Command. “Their intensity will increase.”

The Iraqi Shiite militia Saraya Awliya al-Dam claimed a drone attack Monday targeting U.S. troops at the airport in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, further widening the retaliation over the killing of Khamenei. It had claimed a drone attack on Sunday against a U.S. air base in Irbil, in Iraq’s north.

The group is one of a number of Shiite militias operating in Iraq. The U.S. and Iraq did not immediately comment on the claims.

In the Persian Gulf, Iran’s retaliatory strikes pushed the conflict into cities that have long marketed themselves as regional safe havens. Three people were reported killed in the United Arab Emirates and one each in Kuwait and Bahrain.

In the United Arab Emirates, authorities said most Iranian missiles and drones were intercepted. But some either got through or fell as debris, causing the deaths and significant damage. Bahrain and Kuwait said Iranian strikes in both countries hit civilian targets outside the U.S. bases where Iran had pledged to retaliate.

Tehran’s streets have been largely deserted with people sheltering during airstrikes. The paramilitary Basij force, which has played a central role in crushing recent protests, set up checkpoints across the city, according to witnesses.

In the northern Iranian city of Babol, a student, speaking anonymously over concerns of retribution, told the AP that armed riot police were on the streets Saturday night and into the early hours of Sunday after the death of Khamenei.

“We don’t know whether to be happy about the elimination of the criminals who oppress us or to remain silent in the face of the U.S. and Israel’s war against the country and its interests and the terror that is taking place,” he said.

In Israel, rescue services have confirmed several locations have been hit by Iranian missiles, including Jerusalem and a synagogue in Beit Shemesh, where nine people were killed and 28 wounded, bringing the overall death toll in the country to 11.

The World Health Organization called Monday for sparing civilians and healthcare facilities in the Middle East amid the escalating conflict.

“The protection of civilians and health care must be absolute,” Hanan Balkhy, regional dietitian at WHO wrote on social media. “All parties must … ensure medical facilities remain protected.”

Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel, and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue and Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut contributed to this report.