LONDON (AP) — Opposition politicians accused U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday of weakening Britain’s “special relationship” with the United States by differing from U.S. President Donald Trump over Iran and drawing his ire.
Trump on Tuesday called Britain “uncooperative” and slammed Starmer as “not Winston Churchill” after Starmer initially rebuffed a U.S. request to use U.K. bases for attacks on Iran. The prime minister later said American planes could use bases in England and on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia to strike Iranian missile systems that are targeting British allies in the Middle East.
Trump remains annoyed, and Starmer is bracing to see whether the president’s anger has an impact on trans-Atlantic ties and trade.
Churchill set the tone for the post-World War II trans-Atlantic bond by declaring during a 1946 speech at Westminster College in Missouri that there was “a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States.”
That relationship has been sustained over the decades by a common language, shared interests, military cooperation and cultural affection. Sometimes that has been bolstered by close personal bonds, such as the friendship between Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, or between Tony Blair and Bill Clinton in the 1990s.
There have also been periods of strain. In 1956, Israel, Britain and France attempted to seize control of the Suez Canal after its nationalization by Egypt. Their forces eventually withdrew after U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration refused to back the effort and threatened sanctions. It was a stark reminder of Britain’s waning power and American ascendancy on the world stage.
A decade later, relations hit a new low when British Prime Minister Harold Wilson resisted pressure from U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson to join the Vietnam War.
Blair was seeking to avoid a similar rift when he sent British troops to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 based on what turned out to be faulty intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. The conflict killed 179 British troops, around 4,500 American personnel and many thousands of Iraqis. Blair’s decision remains one of the most controversial by a British leader in decades.
Center-left leader Starmer has forged surprisingly cordial relations with Trump since the president’s return to office in 2025, but friction between the two leaders has been building for months. Trump’s threat to take over Greenland was denounced by Starmer and other European leaders earlier this year.
Recently, Trump has condemned Britain’s agreement to hand over the Chagos Islands, home to the Diego Garcia base, to Mauritius, despite his administration earlier backing the deal.
Starmer has strongly implied that he considers the war on Iran illegal and said his government doesn’t believe in “regime change from the skies.”
Cabinet minister James Murray said Starmer was acting with “a cool head," and argued that Britain’s relationship with the U.S. remains “historic, long-lasting and deep.”
But political opponents and critics in the media claim that Starmer is sidelining the U.K. at a critical time, even after an Iranian-made drone struck a British air force base on Cyprus, causing no injuries. The right-leaning Daily Mail proclaimed: “Starmer takes the Great out of Britain.”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Wednesday in the House of Commons that Starmer should have declared support for the U.S.-Israeli offensive, and Conservative lawmaker Gareth Bacon accused the prime minister of a “dithering and equivocal response" to events.
Starmer replied that "American planes are operating out of British bases. That is the special relationship in action.
“British jets are shooting down drones and missiles to protect American lives in the Middle East on our joint bases. That is the special relationship in action. Sharing intelligence every day to keep our people safe. That is the special relationship in action.
“Hanging on to President Trump’s latest words is not the special relationship in action.”
The U.S. president's moods can be fleeting, and British officials hope this latest squall will blow over quickly.
Trump’s threat this week to cut of trade with Spain after Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez condemned the strikes on Iran as “unjustifiable” and “dangerous” shows how high the stakes can be.
The U.K. deal with Mauritius over the Chagos Islands, which Britain says is crucial to securing the future of the Diego Garcia base, is on hold until U.S. backing is secured. A trade deal signed by Trump and Starmer with great fanfare in May still hasn't been finalized, and has been cast into doubt by Trump’s recent tariff pronouncements.
Peter Ricketts, a former U.K. national security adviser, said that Trump appears to want “completely blind loyalty” from allies, and had launched an “unfair” broadside against Starmer. But he said that British authorities shouldn’t overreact.
“I think the prime minister should keep calm and carry on,” he told the BBC.
U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer look at each other as they shake hands during a press conference at Chequers near Aylesbury, England, Thursday Sept. 18, 2025. Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP, File)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly Prime Ministers' Questions session in the parliament in London, England, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Explosions sounded in Tehran Wednesday as Iran's war with the U.S. and Israel entered a fifth day following earlier strikes on an Iranian nuclear site and retaliatory strikes by the Islamic Republic across the Gulf region.
The explosions around Tehran came at dawn, according to Iran state television, while Israel’s military said its air defenses had been activated to intercept incoming Iranian missiles and explosions were heard around Jerusalem.
The war has killed more than 1,000 people in Iran and dozens in Lebanon, while disrupting the supply of the world’s oil and gas, snarling international shipping, and stranding hundreds of thousands of travelers in the Middle East.
Here is the latest:
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says a torpedo from a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian warship.
In a Pentagon briefing on Wednesday, Hegseth said that the Tuesday night strike on an Iranian warship was the first such attack on an enemy since World War II.
“An American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters,” Hegseth said. “Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo.”
An Israeli military official says top U.S. and Israeli commanders began planning the opening strike of the war against Iran three weeks ago.
The official says that once Israel’s government decided on its intention to attack Iran, Israel’s top military brass reached out to the Pentagon to coordinate the operation.
The militaries worked side by side during the opening strikes on Saturday, killing Iran’s supreme leader and dozens of other top officials. As part of the operation, top Israeli commanders went home for the weekend on Friday to deceive Iran into thinking that an attack was not imminent.
NATO spokesperson, Allison Hart, condemned “Iran’s targeting of Turkey” but she did not confirm whether the military organization’s air defenses were used to down the missile.
“NATO stands firmly with all allies, including Turkey, as Iran continues its indiscriminate attacks across the region,” she said. “Our deterrence and defense posture remains strong across all domains, including when it comes to air and missile defense.”
Asked whether NATO air defenses were used, Hart said she “can’t get into operational details.”
NATO has parts of a broader European ballistic missile defense system on Turkish soil, including an early warning radar at the Kurecik base which can detect missiles from Iran.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has spoken by phone with his Iranian counterpart after an Iranian ballistic missile that was detected heading toward Turkish airspace Wednesday was intercepted.
During the call with Abbas Araghchi, Turkey stressed that “all steps that could escalate the conflict and contribute to its spread” must be avoided, a Turkish official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government protocol.
A container ship was attacked Wednesday afternoon off the coast of Oman, causing fire in its engine room, an agency of the U.K. military said.
The vessel was transiting eastbound through the Strait of Hormuz, 2 nautical miles north of Oman, when it was hit by an unknown projectile, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, UKMTO.
Oman, long an intermediary between the West and Iran, has repeatedly come under attack by Iran.
Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami is a member of the Assembly of Experts, the body charged with picking a new leader. His comments were aired on state television.
“The options have become clear,” Khatami said. Other top officials have indicated a decision may be close.
Sirens have gone off in Jerusalem and elsewhere for simultaneous launches from Lebanon and Iran.
Israel’s military earlier said it is seeing a decline in launches from Iran as the campaign enters its fifth day.
An Iraqi official says a senior Iranian official requested that Iraq take measures to prevent Iranian opposition groups based there from breaching the border.
A statement says Ali Bagheri, deputy secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, made the request in a call with Iraqi National Security Advisor Qassim al-Araji.
The guard says it is prepared for the “complete destruction of the region’s military and economic infrastructure.” The statement came via Iranian state television.
“The continued mischief and deception by the United States in the region will come at the cost of the complete destruction of the region’s military and economic infrastructure,” it says.
It alleges, without offering evidence, that the U.S. military was using “civilian facilities ... as cover.”
The death toll in Iran from the ongoing war with the United States and Israel has reached at least 1,045 people, an Iranian government agency said Wednesday.
The Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs offered the toll, saying it represented the number of bodies so far identified and prepared for burial.
Turkey’s Defense Ministry says NATO defenses have intercepted a ballistic missile launched from Iran before it entered Turkey’s airspace. A ministry statement said the missile was detected after crossing Iraqi and Syrian airspace. NATO air and missile defense units stationed in the eastern Mediterranean intercepted it in time.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney say he sees the war as an extreme example of a rupturing world order in which countries increasingly act without respect for international norms and laws.
“Geo-strategically, hegemons are increasingly acting without constraint or respect for international norms or laws while others bear the consequences. Now the extremes of this disruption are being played out in real time in the Middle East,” Carney said at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based international policy think tank.
But whether the U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran broke international law was “a judgment for others to make,” he said.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a prominent religious leader based in Iraq, condemned the “military aggression” against Iran. He said attacking a country that is a member of the United Nations without U.N. approval is a violation of international law.
The Iran-born al-Sistani, who is one of the world’s most influential Shiite clerics, warned that war would cause widespread chaos and prolonged unrest “that will bring calamities to the peoples of the region and to the interests of others as well.”
Al-Sistani is based in the holy Shiite city of Najaf.
Iranian state television on Wednesday afternoon said the mourning ceremony for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been postponed and would be held later after intense strikes targeted Tehran.
A Hong Kong expatriate living in Dubai moved hotels twice and encountered high prices for hotels and flights out of the country in her search for safety.
Agnes Chen Pun, a partner at an investment firm, said she was afraid her home in Dubai near the Burj Khalifa skyscraper could be targeted. That prompted her to move Monday into a resort in Fujairah on the eastern coast of the UAE, an around 1.5-hour drive from Dubai.
After spending a peaceful night in Fujairah, however, a fire broke at the port there.
“We see the dark smoke,” she said. “Everyone is like running, rushing in the (hotel) lobby.”
There were limited flights leaving UAE or Oman, and she considered taking a private jet from Oman back to Asia, as some others were doing. The cost, however, was as much as $268,000 for a 13-seat private jet flight.
She finally secured commercial flight tickets at around $2,200 per person for economy class seats for her family for an Emirates flight scheduled to fly out of Dubai to Singapore Wednesday evening.
The Iranian vessel that was sinking off of Sri Lanka, the IRIS Dena, is one of Iran’s newest warships.
The frigate was the centerpiece of a two-ship international tour in 2023 that included port calls in countries including South Africa and Brazil. It was accompanied by the support ship IRIS Makran, a converted oil tanker.
The U.S. Treasury Department included both ships on a sanctions designation in February 2023 along with eight executives of an Iranian drone manufacturer that supplied the weapons to Russia for use against civilian targets in Ukraine.
The Israeli military is ordering people living in dozens of villages in southern Lebanon close to the border with Israel to evacuate and move “immediately” north of the Litani River.
The Israeli army’s Arabic spokesperson warned people on X that if they decide to move south of the river they will be endangering their lives.
The area south of the Litani River is mostly along the border with Israel. The Lebanese government says it has cleared the area of Hezbollah’s military presence there over the past months.
Israel is seeing a decline in launches from Iran as the campaign enters its fifth day, military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said.
Defrin also said Israel is not surprised by any new weapons Iran may use and had prepared extensively for the confrontation.
He said Israel would continue to “hunt and destroy” Iran’s military capabilities.
Israel has struck more than 250 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon over the past 48 hours, an Israeli army spokesperson said Wednesday.
Spokesperson Effie Defrin said in a recorded statement that the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah had been launching rockets at Israel overnight.
Defrin said Israel would continue to target Hezbollah until “the threat is removed.”
“I emphasize: We have no issue with the people of Lebanon. The people of Lebanon are paying the price for the Iranian regime,” he said.
A top Sri Lankan official says 32 people have been rescued from a sinking Iranian naval ship off Sri Lanka’s southern coast have been admitted to a hospital.
Dr. Anil Jasinghe, a top health ministry official, says one of them is in critical condition, seven are receiving emergency treatment and others are treated for minor injuries.
Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath told Parliament that Sri Lanka’s navy received information that the ship IRIS Dena with 180 onboard was under distress, and that the island nation sent ships and air force planes on a rescue mission.
There were no immediate details as to how the sailors were wounded and how the ship was damaged.
Kuwait’s military said a new wave of Iranian missiles and drone was targeting the tiny Mideast nation.
Iran’s judiciary chief threatened “those who say or do anything” in support of the U.S.-Israeli airstrike campaign targeting the Islamic Republic.
Gholam Hosseini Mohseni Ejehei’s remarks raised the possibility of those detained facing death-penalty charges, as cooperating with an enemy can carry execution if convicted.
Speaking on state television, he said: “Those who say or do anything in line with the will of America and the Zionist regime are on the enemy’s side and must be dealt with on revolutionary, Islamic principles and in accordance with the time of war.”
The British government says a chartered flight will take off from Oman late Wednesday to bring back some of the thousands of U.K. nationals in the Gulf.
It says the most vulnerable will be prioritized for the first of what is expected to be a series of flights.
The Foreign Office says more than 130,000 British nationals in the Middle East have registered their presence with the government since the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict broke out, though not all are trying to leave. Many of those are in the United Arab Emirates, and the government has advised against trying to travel overland to Oman.
Commercial airlines are also starting to resume some flights, with Etihad, Emirates and Virgin Atlantic all due to operate flights from the UAE to London on Wednesday.
The Israeli military said one of its F-35 stealth fighter jets shot down a piloted Iranian Air Force YAK-130 fighter over Tehran on Wednesday. Israel described it as the first air-to-air combat kill of a piloted aircraft by the fighter jet.
Iran’s top diplomat is again criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump as America and Israel continue their airstrike campaign targeting his country in the war.
Abbas Araghchi said that “Trump betrayed diplomacy and Americans who elected him.”
“When complex nuclear negotiations are treated like a real estate transaction, and when big lies cloud realities, unrealistic expectations can never be met,” Araghchi wrote on X. “The outcome? Bombing the negotiation table out of spite.”
The war began Saturday after Israel launched an airstrike killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The U.S. and Iran had held three rounds of nuclear negotiations prior to the start of the war, but no deal had been reached.
As the fighter jets roared overhead, those still in Tehran looked anxiously to the skies.
One man who ran a clothing shop said he didn’t know what, if anything, he could do.
“It’s very difficult to decide what to do. If I leave the city, how am I supposed to earn money and survive?” said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
“I just hope the Arabs do not get involved. If they do, their missiles won’t be as precise as these.”
By Jon Gambrell
Airstrikes also were reported in the Iranian cities of Urmiah and Kermanshah.
The Israeli military said it had begun “broad scale strikes” in Tehran.
Airstrikes struck eastern Tehran later Wednesday morning, witnesses said.
Israel’s defense minister on Wednesday threatened whoever Iran picks to be the country’s next supreme leader, saying he will be “a target for elimination.”
Israel Katz made the statement on X.
“Every leader appointed by the Iranian terror regime to continue and lead the plan to destroy Israel, to threaten the United States and the free world and the countries of the region, and to suppress the Iranian people — will be a target for elimination,” he wrote.
Israel targeted a building Tuesday associated with Iran’s Assembly of Experts, which will select the new supreme leader.
Israel killed the 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a strike Saturday that started the war.
A man carries an Iranian flag to place on the rubble of a police facility struck during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
The rubble of a police facility struck during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign is seen in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Workers remove the rubble of a police facility struck during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A man carries an Iranian flag to place on the rubble of a police facility struck during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Israeli tanks maneuver near the Israel-Lebanon border, in northern Israel, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
An Iranian flag is placed among the ruins of a police station struck Monday during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Firefighters inspect the rubble as smoke rises from a building hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Jewish men covered in prayer shawls pray in an underground parking garage as a precaution against possible Iranian missile attacks, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
A coffin is carried during the funeral of mostly children killed in what Iranian officials said was an Israeli-U.S. strike Feb. 28 at a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)
A man takes shelter in an underground metro station as a precaution against possible Iranian missile attacks, in Ramat Gan, Israel Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
