He declined to comment on reports that London had denied the United States access to British bases worldwide to conduct its attacks on Iran and would not be drawn on the legality of the US-Israeli strikes.
London: The United Kingdom’s Defence Secretary John Healey revealed Sunday that two missiles were fired from Iran in the direction of Cyprus, where the UK maintains significant military facilities, in the wake of escalating regional conflict following joint US-Israeli strikes on Iranian targets.
Healey said it was not yet clear whether the missiles were deliberately aimed at British bases on the Mediterranean island, including important RAF facilities such as RAF Akrotiri, which supports regional defensive operations. “We are not sure if they were intentionally aimed at our bases,” he said.
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Healey also stated that "few people will mourn" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the British government's first public response to the Iranian supreme leader's death in US-Israeli strikes.
"Iran and the regime he's led for so long, it's a source of evil, murdering its own citizens and sponsoring and exporting terror, including to countries like Britain," Healey told Sky News.
He added that "the concern now, of course, is this regime is lashing out... in an increasingly indiscriminate and widespread way, and people will be really concerned that it's not just military targets".
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Healey, who also spoke to the BBC, repeated the UK government's insistence that British forces were involved in purely "defensive" operations, with warplanes operating from Qatar and Britain's airbase in Cyprus.
He declined to comment on reports that London had denied the United States access to British bases worldwide to conduct its attacks on Iran and would not be drawn on the legality of the US-Israeli strikes.
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"It is for the US to set out the legal basis of the action," he told the BBC.
"Britain played no part in the strikes on Iran. We share, however, the primary aim of all allies in the region and the US that Iran should never have a nuclear weapon."
Healey noted that around 300 UK armed forces personnel were "within several hundred yards" of drones and missiles that Iran fired at a US military base in Bahrain.
Published: 01 Mar 2026, 03:39 pm IST
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