The UK Defence Secretary said that the Iranian regime is responding to US-Israeli attacks with “indiscriminate” strikes across the Middle East, including targeting British military assets in the region.
“The concern now is that this regime is striking back, striking in an increasingly indiscriminate and widespread way,” John Healey told Sky News on Sunday.
Healey said there were 300 personnel at the UK base in Bahrain, which was targeted on Saturday by Iranian missiles and drones. Some of the personnel were “within a few hundred yards” of where the missiles and drones landed, he said.
Also on Saturday, two missiles were “launched in the direction of Cyprus,” he said.
“We do not believe they were directed at Cyprus,” he clarified. “But nevertheless, it is an example of how there is a very real and growing threat from a regime that is striking widely across the region, and this requires us to act… in a defensive way.”
The Defence Secretary also said that the Iranian regime is a “source of evil” in the region, listing a series of ways in which it has “threatened” countries and repressed its own citizens at home.
“Twenty terrorist plots directed at Britain, sponsored by Iran; tens of thousands of young people, protesters, killed in the streets in recent months in Iran; 57,000 Iranian drones launched by Russia in Ukraine; proxy groups destabilising countries across the region,” Healey said.