An aerial view of the island of Diego Garcia where a a joint U.S.-U.K. military base is located. (U.S. Navy)
Iran fired two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at a joint U.S.-U.K. military base in the Indian Ocean, marking the first operational use of a weapon system that potentially puts targets far beyond the Middle East in range, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Neither of the missiles hit the strategic Diego Garcia base — a hub for long-range U.S. bombers, warships and submarines — that is some 2,500 miles from Iran.
One missile failed in flight while a U.S. warship fired an interceptor at the other, the Journal reported, citing multiple unnamed U.S. officials. It wasn’t clear on what day the missiles were fired or if the second missile was struck by the interceptor or also failed in flight.
Still, the incident marked Iran’s first operational use of an intermediate-range ballistic missile, which suggests its missiles have a greater range than Tehran has previously acknowledged, the Journal reported.
Nawaf Al-Thani, a defense analyst with the Council on International Mediation, said the long-held assumption was that Iran’s missile range was capped at around 1,200 miles. Moving up to 2,500 miles amounts to a “strategic leap,” he said in a post on the social media website X.
“The real story is not whether the missile was intercepted. It is that Iran may have demonstrated reach far beyond what much of the world believed it possessed… Major European capitals begin to enter the conversation. Paris comes into range,” Al-Thani added.
Earlier this month, the United Kingdom granted the U.S. authority to conduct defensive operations from its bases after initially balking at the idea.
On Friday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office clarified that the agreement allows the U.S. to use British bases to strike Iranian missile sites targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
While the U.S. generally doesn’t detail where specific strike missions are launched from, many analysts say Diego Garcia has likely factored into ongoing operations against Iran.
The status of Diego Garcia has been a point of contention between the United States and the U.K., which in 2025 indicated that it would hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, where the base is located, over to Mauritius.
The deal, however, is yet to be finalized.
In a Jan. 20 post on his Truth Social platform, President Donald Trump has called the idea “an act of great stupidity.”