The suspected drone strike came shortly after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the UK has agreed to let the US use British bases for attacks on Iran’s missiles and their launch sites.
The UK's Defence Ministry has announced a suspected drone hit its military base at Akrotiri, Cyprus, in what is the first apparent impact of the current Middle East conflict triggered by US-Israeli strikes on Iran that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday.
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British Defence Secretary John Healey earlier said ballistic missiles were fired toward Cyprus at around midnight, adding there were no casualties from the suspected strike.
The attack was confirmed by Cyrus, with a government spokesperson reporting an “incident” that happened at a British air base on the island nation’s southern coastline involved an “unmanned drone, which caused limited damage.”
Spokesperson Constantinos Letymbiotis said the incident at RAF Akrotiri occurred shortly after midnight Monday.
"Information received through various channels" pointed to a drone strike, Letymbiotis said, adding there were no details yet as regards "what sort of drone it was, where it came from, or how much damage it caused."
RAF Akrotiri is Britain’s main air base for operations in the Middle East and is a British sovereign territory.
According to Letymbiotis, Cypriot authorities have enacted security protocols and are monitoring the situation in coordination with the UK and its two military bases in Cyprus.
Strike comes after Starmer granted US access to UK bases
The suspected drone strike came shortly after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the UK had granted the US access to UK bases upon request from Washington.
Starmer said that the UK will not join in strikes on Iran but has agreed to let the US use British bases for attacks on Iran’s missiles and their launch sites.
"The United States has requested permission to use British bases for that specific and limited defensive purpose. We have taken the decision to accept this request to prevent Iran from firing missiles across the region, killing innocent civilians," said Starmer.
Earlier on Saturday, he, alongside his counterparts in a group of nations known as the E3 nations—Germany, France, and Britain—denounced Iranian attacks on neighbouring nations and demanded that Tehran stop its indiscriminate military actions and resume talks again.
A joint statement, with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, declared, "We strongly condemn Iranian attacks on countries in the region."
And in another statement released on Sunday evening, they said they would “take steps to defend our interests and those of our allies in the region, potentially by enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran's capability to fire missiles and drones at their source.”
On Sunday, Iran’s foreign minister suggested his country’s military units are currently acting independently from any central government control after being pressed about attacks on Gulf Arab nations that have served as intermediaries for Tehran in the past.
“As a matter of fact, our, you know, military units are now in fact independent and somehow isolated and they are acting based on instructions — you know, general instructions — given to them in advance,” Abbas Araghchi told a Middle East broadcaster.
Iran has launched attacks against Qatar, which has negotiated with Tehran and shares a sizable offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf with the Islamic Republic.
It has also attacked the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman, which acted as a middleman in recent nuclear negotiations with the United States.
Tehran's attacks across the Gulf states are already leaving casualties just as the US and Israel are continuing to pound targets in Iran, dropping massive bombs on its ballistic missile sites and wiping out warships as part of an intensifying military campaign.