The government has said the UK is \u201cready to defend itself\u201d after Iran\u2019s military warned that any bases being used by the US were \u201clegitimate targets\u201d.<\/p>\n
The UK has allowed the US to launch \u201cdefensive\u201d operations from British bases hosting American planes since the start of its war on Iran but has refused to help in offensive operations.<\/p>\n
That policy has not been altered by the new prime minister, Andy Burnham, who was notified last week that a decision had been made to extend the agreement with the US.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Thursday that \u201cany base used for aggression against Iranian territory constitutes a legitimate target for our forces\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a statement published on the IRGC-linked Tasnim news agency, the group said American bombing missions had been launched from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire<\/a> two days earlier.<\/p>\n The statement came after the US carried out a 12th consecutive night of strikes against targets in Iran. The Ministry of Defence has not commented on whether Fairford was used by the US for operations against Iran this week.<\/p>\n The IRGC also accused the \u201cBritish monarchy regime\u201d of causing being the \u201cprimary cause of hardships in our region with a black record of partitioning Islamic nations, widespread massacres, imposing despotic regimes, and organising the occupation of Palestine\u201d.<\/p>\n It warned the government \u201cnot to weigh down its record any further\u201d.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the British government said: \u201cOur armed forces are ready to keep \u2060the United Kingdom safe from any kind of attacks, whether it\u2019s on our soil \u2060or from abroad. The UK stands ready 24\/7 to defend itself.<\/p>\n \u201cThis includes through \u200coperating a layered approach to air and missile defence, \u200cprovided by Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force<\/a> assets equipped with a range of advanced capabilities, working closely with our Nato allies.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are committed to defending our people, our interests and our allies, acting in accordance with international law and not getting drawn into the wider conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n On 1 March a drone struck the RAF base at Akrotiri<\/a> in Cyprus, hitting a hangar, and prompting a partial evacuation of the facility. On 19 March, Iran fired two ballistic missiles at the UK\u2019s Diego Garcia base<\/a> in the Chagos Islands. One reportedly failed mid-flight, while the other was shot down by a US airship.<\/p>\n Iran has launched strikes against countries in the Gulf that house US military<\/a> bases, including Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, killing American service personnel in some of the attacks. Donald Trump said Iran would \u201cpay a big price\u201d for killing US troops.<\/p>\n On Thursday afternoon, the US president said he was considering ordering a \u201cmassive attack\u201d on Iran<\/a>. \u201cI am close to making a decision,\u201d he told Axios. \u201cWe\u2019re all set for it.\u201d He said he believed Iran\u2019s leaders \u201cwant to negotiate\u201d, but aren\u2019t yet ready to make a deal.<\/p>\n In another sign of the conflict potentially escalating, Yemen\u2019s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they attacked two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea<\/a> on Thursday, as oil topped $100 a barrel<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government has said the UK is \u201cready to defend itself\u201d after Iran\u2019s military warned that any bases…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-707895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707895","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=707895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}