REPORTS CAME in on the morning of Saturday, 21st March that missiles had been fired at Diego Garcia – an island in the Indian Ocean which has been home to the controversial UK base for years.
Initially, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) made no comment, but a statement soon appeared which blamed Iran for the attack. The MoD said the statement showed that Iran posed a threat to “British interests and British allies”.
This left commentators with something of a conundrum. General Sir Richard Barrons, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme pointed out that the Diego Garcia base is about 2,361 miles from Iran – but it had been thought that Iran’s longest range missiles could only travel 1,243 miles. Either western intelligence on Iran’s military capabilities, or someone else fired the missiles while pretending to be Iran.
The assault, thought to be from two intermediate-range ballistic missiles were fired at Diego Garcia, failed as the missiles fell short of their intended target. It came days after the UK gave the US permission to use the base on Diego Garcia for “defensive operations” arising from the US/Israeli attack on Iran..
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