Iranian drones struck a British military base in Erbil, northern Iraq on Wednesday night after evading air defences, marking the third such attack against British forces since the US-Israeli war on Iran began, according to the Daily Telegraph.
British air-defence troops destroyed two drones during the attack, but other devices broke through and hit the air base. No British soldiers were injured, though American troops at the base suffered minor injuries, UK officials confirmed.
It follows a drone strike on RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and a missile landing 400 metres from UK personnel in Iraq. The Akrotiri drone, which struck a hangar reportedly housing an American U-2 spy plane on 2 March, evaded air defences by flying low and close to the water at night amid electronic interference, a military source said.
Brigadier Guy Foden, assistant chief of staff for operations at Permanent Joint Headquarters, described the Erbil attack as part of a broader pattern of increasingly coordinated strikes. “Erbil and Baghdad were both struck a number of times last night with increasing coordination,” he said, adding that British personnel shot down two drones but that a number of others impacted the base.
Defence Secretary John Healey said Russia was helping Tehran refine its drone tactics, warning that the assaults were becoming “more problematic” to deal with. Lieutenant General Nick Perry, chief of joint operations, said there was “definitively” a link between Russian and Iranian drone tactics, noting that Iran had adopted the Russian practice of flying drones at lower altitudes to make them harder to intercept.
Healey said he did not rule out deploying Royal Navy warships to protect the Strait of Hormuz, describing the situation as having “an international, imperative and incentive to try and see this resolved.” He added that “additional options” were being discussed without specifying what these were.
Britain deployed HMS Dragon, a Type 45 destroyer, to the eastern Mediterranean on Tuesday. The vessel is expected to arrive next week and will be used to protect the region from missile and drone attacks, the Telegraph reported.
