Defence Secretary of the United Kingdom John Healey said few would mourn the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling Iran\u2019s regime a source of terror. He warned of rising regional threats as Iranian missiles landed near British troops in Bahrain.<\/p>\n
Defence Secretary of the United Kingdom, John Healey said that only few people will mourn the death of Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who died in a US-Israeli military operation in Iran on Saturday.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Iranian TV confirmed the death of 86-year-old Khamenei early on Sunday as Iran continued to retaliate the strikes of Israel and the United State of America. It fired missiles at Gulf neighbors and Israel.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0US President Donald Trump had previously claimed Khamenei died in the attacks and urged the Iranian people to seize \u201cthe single greatest chance\u2026 to take back their country\u201d.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIran and the regime he\u2019s led for so long, it\u2019s a source of evil, murdering its own citizens and sponsoring and exporting terror, including to countries like Britain,\u201d Healey told Sky News in an interview.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Giving the first UK Government response to Mr Khamenei\u2019s death, Healey told Sky News\u2019s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: \u201cI think few people will mourn the Ayatollah\u2019s death, not least the family and friends of those thousands of young protesters murdered on the streets of Iranian cities.<\/p>\n
\u201cIran and the regime he\u2019s led for so long, it\u2019s a source of evil, murdering its own citizens and sponsoring and exporting terror, including to countries like Britain.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Defence Secretary also warned Iran is now \u201clashing out in an increasingly indiscriminate and widespread way,\u201d pointing to attacks on an airport in Kuwait and hotels in Dubai and Bahrain.<\/p>\n
Healey added that the Iranian missiles and drones had landed within \u201ca few hundred yards\u201d of some 300 British troops at a base in Bahrain, while two missiles had been fired in the direction of Cyprus, where thousands of UK personnel are based.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t believe they were targeted at Cyprus, but nevertheless it\u2019s an example of how there is a very real and rising threat from a regime that is lashing out widely across the region,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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On Saturday, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said UK aircraft were in the sky as part of defensive operations, which continued into Sunday.<\/p>\n
Home<\/a>World<\/a>UK Defence Chief calls Iranian regime \u2018source of evil\u2019 after Khamenei killedEnd of Article<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defence Secretary of the United Kingdom John Healey said few would mourn the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,163496,163489,163479,163485,163498,163475,163491,163500,163482,163497,163492,163488,163487,163478,163495,163486,163476,163499,420,163481,163483,163490,50,163477,163494,163484,56,54,55,163480,163493],"class_list":["post-452107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-gulf-nations-airspace-shut","tag-iran-airspace-closures","tag-iran-attack-live-blog","tag-iran-civilian-casualties","tag-iran-explosion-live-feed","tag-iran-israel-us-war-live-updates","tag-iran-leadership-crisis","tag-iran-nuclear-site-strikes","tag-iran-retaliatory-missiles","tag-iran-school-strike-casualty","tag-iran-war-fear-panic","tag-iran-war-fears","tag-iran-war-impact-global","tag-iran-war-news-today","tag-iran-war-reactions-world","tag-israel-airstrike-iran-2026","tag-israel-iran-us-conflict-2026","tag-israel-warns-iran","tag-keir-starmer","tag-khamenei-death-news","tag-middle-east-war-live","tag-military-operation-epic-fury","tag-news","tag-operation-epic-fury-updates","tag-russia-condemns-us-israel-strikes","tag-tehran-explosions-updates","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-us-israel-strikes-on-iran","tag-us-warns-iran-retaliation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}