{"id":453412,"date":"2026-03-02T10:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T10:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/453412\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T10:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T10:09:09","slug":"british-base-in-cyprus-hit-by-drone-strike-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/453412\/","title":{"rendered":"British base in Cyprus hit by drone strike \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAll the competent services of the republic are on alert and in full operational readiness,\u201d \u200bCypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said<\/a> in a statement Monday morning.<\/p>\n

He confirmed that a \u2060Shahed-type unmanned aerial vehicle caused minor damage when it crashed into the military facilities at 12:03 a.m. local time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want \u2060to be clear: Our country \u200cdoes not \u2060participate in any way and does not intend to be part of any military operation,\u201d Christodoulides said.<\/p>\n

The Cypriot president briefed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on the incident. \u201cWhile the Republic of Cyprus was not the target, let me be clear: we stand collectively, firmly and unequivocally with our Member States in the face of any threat,\u201d von der Leyen said<\/a> in a post on X.<\/p>\n

Akrotiri, located on a peninsula on the southern tip of Cyprus, southwest of the coastal city of Limassol, is one the two bases Britain has maintained in its former colony since independence in 1960. It has been used in \u200bthe past for military operations in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAll the competent services of the republic are on alert and in full operational readiness,\u201d \u200bCypriot President Nikos…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[98826,5704,10521,140,142,87218,59,57,58,585,2784,420,632,151,152,105446,50,1352,1141,56,54,158,55,2988,25322],"class_list":{"0":"post-453412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-air-defense","9":"tag-conflict","10":"tag-cyprus","11":"tag-defense","12":"tag-drones","13":"tag-european-defense","14":"tag-gb","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-greatbritain","17":"tag-iran","18":"tag-iraq","19":"tag-keir-starmer","20":"tag-middle-east","21":"tag-military","22":"tag-missiles","23":"tag-multinational-defense-programs","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-services","26":"tag-syria","27":"tag-uk","28":"tag-united-kingdom","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-unitedkingdom","31":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","32":"tag-yemen"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453412","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=453412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}