Summary
Thank you for following along with our live coverage today. While we’re closing this blog, you can continue to follow the latest developments in our Middle East crisis blog, which is tracking the escalating conflict.
Tune in tomorrow for more. Here’s what’s happened so far today:
The RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus was hit by a drone strike overnight. Initially, it was believed that the strike came just hours after Keir Starmer had announced that the UK has allowed the US use British military bases to attack Iranian missile sites, but a Ministry of Defence assessment found that it had actually happened before the prime minister’s announcement.
Starmer took heat from the left and the right for first saying the UK would not get involved in the strikes on Iran but then allowing the US to use UK bases in their operations. The prime minister addressed the criticism before Parliament on Monday afternoon, saying that Iran’s “outrageous actions” could not be ignored and that the UK would continue engaging in defensive actions while still not joining in on the strikes.
Donald Trump told The Telegraph that he was “very disappointed” in Starmer for initially not allowing the US to use UK bases. “President Trump has expressed his disagreement with our decision not to get involved in the initial strikes,” Starmer said Monday. “But it is my duty to judge what is in Britain’s national interest. That is what I’ve done and I stand by it.”
During the day, two more unmanned drones were shot down as they headed toward RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus. Starmer said that none of the UK bases in Cyprus were being used for US bombers. John Healey, the secretary of state for defence, announced that the government was moving families who live at RAF Akrotiri to temporary accommodations in Cyprus as a precaution. Greece committed to sending two frigates and two F-16 fighter jets to Cyprus “to contribute to its defence against the threats it faces”.
Foreign secretary Yvette Cooper held strong as she made the rounds on the morning shows, saying that it was “simply not true” that the UK is being dragged into another Iraq-style conflict in the Middle East. She worked to keep the focus of the coverage on the “300,000 estimated British citizens in other Gulf countries that are being targeted by Iranian missiles and drones”. She fielded a number of questions about possible evacuation plans for the Britons in the region, some of whom are unable to return to the UK because of closed airspace and grounded flights. She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that they are working with the airlines, travel companies and local governments and are sending out rapid deployment teams to provide support and that 102,000 British nationals have registered their presence in the region.
The US secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, has called the joint US-Israeli strikes in Iran the “most lethal and precise air power campaign in history”, indicated the US did not plan to effect a democratic transition in Iran – and refused to establish a clear timeline for how long the US operation will continue.
In the first public remarks by an administration official since the war began on Saturday, Hegseth also said that the US did not have “boots on the ground” in Iran but that he wouldn’t speculate what “we will or will not do”. He also said that four US service members had been killed by a ballistic missile that managed to penetrate allied air defenses.
But speaking soon afterwards, Donald Trump said he did not rule out sending US ground troops into Iran “if they were necessary”.
In an interview with the New York Post the president said: “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground – like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it … I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”
