The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that British forces are responding to what it described as a suspected drone strike at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.
In a statement issued shortly after midnight local time, an MOD spokesperson said: “Our Armed Forces are responding to a suspected drone strike at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus at midnight local time.”
The spokesperson added: “Our force protection in the region is at the highest level and the base has responded to defend our people. This is a live situation and further information will be provided in due course.”
The confirmation follows earlier unverified reports circulating online claiming an explosion or impact at the UK’s Sovereign Base Area in Cyprus.
It is understood that there have been no casualties as a result of the incident.
RAF Akrotiri is located within the Western Sovereign Base Area and serves as a key hub for UK air operations in the Middle East. The UK regularly reviews the protection posture of its overseas bases, including in Cyprus, in light of regional threats.
In recent weeks, additional defensive capabilities have been positioned at British bases on the island as part of ongoing efforts to support security and stability in the region. These measures are focused on detecting and countering airborne threats and include radar systems, counter-drone systems, F-35 aircraft and ground-based air defence assets.
The situation remains ongoing. Further updates are expected as more information becomes available. We also don’t have confirmation of where the drone originated, so have avoided speculation as to origins at this stage.
Hopefully nothing expensive was lost but this does give yet another excuse for Starmer to get off his backside and authorise an appropriate response, like finish off what’s left of the Iranian navy/air force
In the words of Rainier Wolfcastle “Up and at them!”
Really? What is the justification for attacking Iran, what is the legal basis?
All we would be doing is providing a token force Vs US/Israel and putting a target marker on the UK, both our overseas basis but more worryingly terror attacks on the mainland..
Let’s stay out of this and leave it to the US.
Nah I don’t believe in appeasement. We have been attacked directly, we should respond
And these islamist bottom feeders never needed an excuse to launch terror attacks anyway. The likes of France, Germany and Saudi Arabia are likely to launch their own operations in the near future also
I highly doubt France/Germany will attack Iran, as why bother.
There is no end game here, what can bombing aim to achieve. Unless trump comes out and explains how it’s going to result in regime change, the only outcome is things becoming far worse.
It achieves the downfall of a regime that has been a menace to its own people, the region and the world; and is a key Russian ally that has been supplying them with drones among other things, actively working against UK interests in Ukraine. This attack should be celebrated, and we should absolutely be partaking in this action.
How does bombing achieve the downfall of the regime or achieve a more friendly regime taking over? The regime is made up of thousands of people, just taking out a few leaders isn’t going to achieve anything.
Are we out if it? Healy claims 20 or so terrorist attacks have been stopped in the UK alone that were sponsored by Iran ,seems they don’t mind trying to attack us.
100%. Some of the posters on here are blind to threats Iran pose to the UK. After USA and Israel, we’d be third on their nuke attack list if they ever got the bomb.
Not blind and as someone that works in London now a little nervous. I just don’t see the need to make things worse. Especially as all the UK would achieve is a token measure Vs the 2 carrier air wings that the US has in the region and air force of Israel.
The UK has no real reason to join in the bombing campaign.
However, Iran probably does not see it that way, they see the UK as a coloniser and supporter of the US and Israel,
and therefore the UK must be dealt with severely.
This is the existential conflict Iran has been preparing for.
If the regime survives this campaign, they will definitely go for a Nuke, they have nothing to lose anymore.
They’ve been ‘definitely going for a nuke’ for a long time now. They’ve been using stalling tactics, pretending to want peace and dialogue, and fooled weaker western governments for too long. Without decisive action they could well have had nuclear capabilities within a few years.
Where does the definetly come from? European intelligence and UN have both stated there is no evidence of this. It’s only the US that has stated it without evidence, and after Iraq dodgy intelligence do you blindly believe them?
Dear BOF. If you attack us we have every reason to get involved in the bombing campaign. Pretty sure the Typhoon boys at AKI would be more than willing to burn everything witha Hezbollah flag to the ground right now.
So Sky Sabre not in place! complacency, incompetence – wtf. Bring back the Typhoons until the base is properly protected.
Do we know it wasn’t in place?
the fact a drone with the range(& size) to get to Cyprus was able to hit the base – yes
No that just says something got through, doesn’t confirm the battery wasn’t there. It’s possible it failed to detect the drone. We don’t have the info.
There are have been zero visual confirmation or announcements of the deployment of SS to AKI so doubt it’s there.
Richmond has already proven capability of CAMM against drones.
SS comes under the command of the army – so likely deployed in Estonia and Falklands only.
Yes
rmj, The Typhoons have never gone away. In fact their numbers were reinforced recently.
Badly worded on my part – I meant they shouldn’t be at AKI until base protection’s in place
What a fascinating modern world we live in.
Bet the DIP gets rewritten now and waits another few months to find money for new GBAD.
Last week we went past the anniversary of Starmer’s announcement that in 2027/28 £6bn will be taken from Foreign Aid budget and given to the MOD (although he deliberately miscalculated and called it £13.4bn). This flagship increase of peanuts, was announced 26 months in advance and continually referred to in the past tense by the likes of Healey as though they had already funded it.
How long will it take the government to reach a realisation that it’s too little too late? That the time to make the increase was five or ten years ago, and not to delay it until 60% of the way through this parliament?
Unbelievable really.
Hit by a low tech drone.
If there ever was a wake-up call to the ever useless Starmer & Reeves combo this is it.
It shows how vulnerable UK bases are and that there is no last line of defence.
The usual problem with these kind of instances is that they embolden aggressors and arm them with the possibility of success.
Before this there would have been a chance of an opponent thinking that there was high powered EW or undeclared point defence. Not now – that is all in the open.
beggars belief that with the likely threat assessments that nothing has been done bar a few gate guards! Stache needs to start shouting at people to get protection in place
possibility of drone sent from hezbollah group in lebanon. are not most military bases exposed and fairly defenseless to low tech drone threat.
Yep, US bases with the most advanced air defences and on maximum readiness have been hit over the weekend. The threat by low cost drones is significant, especially after Russia has collected so much info on strength /weaknesses of western air defences during its daily bombardment of Ukraine.
To hear a wake up call requires you to have a pulse.
Boris Johnson was in charge 4 years ago when RU cruise and ballistic missiles hammered Ukr military and civilian infrastructure.
Patriot should have been ordered that day when it was apparent we are wide open
I accept that counter small drone systems need time, but Sky Sabre was in place.
Starmer has had two years to see reports that even the radar on Sampt is reportedly not upto the job of dealing with the adaptations Ru has made to BM.
Meanwhile Germany orders Arrow 3, more IRIS systems, already has Patriot.
Where is the resistance coming from?
Army who fear further cuts or RAF seniors who believe their fighter priority must be protected.
Meanwhile we give Pakistani money for climate change projects and £97m to the Jihadi Jolani.
If there are causalities down the line, I hope families sue the Govt.
I mean sky sabre was in service 4 years ago but order levels have been at a snails pace.
Remember we joined Sky shield the same day as Germany, lots of UK announcements along with two other air defence and missile programs we joined. The last government was great at joining stuff just never bought anything.
“ I accept that counter small drone systems need time, but Sky Sabre was in place.”
The small numbers of Sky Sabre are down to army perfectionism.
As soon as they got their delivery they announced they wanted a longer range system. There was funding for many more units.
The biggest issue is the total lack of deployable gun based defences.
SB, Was SkySabre in place at Akrotiri? I have never heard that it was. If so, why didn’t it shoot down the incoming drone?
No idea if it was or wasn’t.
RAF were never keen on dedicated GBAD capability as they wanted to do it using their frames.
Problem here is the tiny number of frames can’t be everywhere.
This is genuinely embarrassing, how was the area not protected? Surely they must be on high alert (government said yesterday we are) so how did a drone get through?
Currently watching on the news Gulf countries shooting down hundreds of aerial threats on a daily basis and an RAF base on an island with immense amount of warning capabilities cant shoot down a solitary drone coming at it.
Borderline speechless.
I mean the US bases got hit also, it’s not like we are alone. Iran no doubt has all the info from Russia on how to beat western air defences.
“the US bases got hit also ”
Yes, but they were under much heavier attack, and they are much closer to Iran, so less warning time.
Ok, can’t afford to shoot them down as we have limited missile that coat vast amounts, we have no anti aircraft/drone guns unlike most of NATO. So we do nothing and look dumb. Defence Review has fixed nothing, solved nothing and is doing nothing. So many gaps in GBAD its a joke. Bet we got a few projects running though that might in 3 to 5 years find some thing we can think about ordering but drag that out as well,
No lessons were learned from Ukraine, it seems. It has been clear since 2005 that a war on Iran would go regional and Cyprus would be in the cross hairs, if not from Iran, then Hezbollah just across the water.
It will be interesting to see how many drones were involved in the attack, how many were shot down and how one got through. Several outlets report one drone shot down, one hit, with a few others initially reporting 5 drones intercepted. There was also reports from Healey of ballistic missiles intercepted, although the Cypriot government denied they were targeted at Cyprus.
What I’m getting at is fog of war is very much in play here and we don’t know what we don’t know.
If it was a complete failure then heads must roll and orders must be placed now.
Steve, MSM report that one drone attacked and impacted, damage to buildings was minor, no casualties. None were shot down as I don’t believe we have GBAD at Akrotiri, unbelievably.
I haven’t seen any confirmation of 0 GBAD there yet. They also haven’t confirmed a Sky Sabre battery was deployed so who knows at this point. MSM relies on several sources reporting an event before they publish, and rightly so. All we know is they have confirmation that a drone hit the runway at Akrotiri.
Yvetter Cooper is quoted as saying “We’re not able to provide further information and detail at this point, but obviously, all of the precautionary measures are being taken around the base.” so make of that what you will.
I know exactly the value of that statement. There’s an element of operational security which is required. But the operational vulnerability is caused by political incompetence which needs to be masked.
Does Akrotiri still just protect jets with gazebos? If that is still the case then it is insane or even treason. One day this country will wake up and find we are so far in the mire we will drown together. Limitless money seems to be found for social projects, welfare and the NHS so best start recruiting Russian language teachers for schools, get ahead of the game for once. 2% on income tax right now and start a last ditch effort to get our shit together but it will never happen because we have so many things we would rather do so we will just keep our fingers crossed and hope everything goes away. Also Healey needs to learn to keep his trap shut and if he must speak get his facts at least half right.
“One day this country will wake up and find we are so far in the mire….”
I think that day has come already.
I don’t think we have ever properly protected this base other than a few guards at the gate. Do the Typhoons get hangared in HAS? Why no SkySabres and SHORAD (MANPADs) there? They protect MPA in the Falklands.
Lack of substantive AA defence after years of cuts this is going to happen….
To many false economies have been made, we need low cost per shot drone/missile defence systems at scale right now to defend out bases and critical infrastructure.
I despair.
We have known for years that this base was within range of Iran’s new generation of missiles and drones.
We have suspected for years that this conflict with Iran would happen one day.
Same old story … in 5 years time we will have some new system / some new equipment …. too late!, war is happening now.
On top of this 100s of thousands of Brits may need evacuation from Gulf states. I warn of such a scenario when Healy and Starmer pre election ramble on about retrenchment to Europe. Why were we not on a high state of readiness for this with assets forward deployed, not in the gulf but in a position to support and defend Brits in trouble. We know Trump is unreliable and chaotic so there’s really no excuse. Smacks of ideology and doing the reverse of the previous government over proper policy that reflects reality.
In reality there is no country with the ability to evacuate the numbers you state! why on earth would you have gone on holiday etc to the ME with this clearly brewing? No flights no boats how do you suggest they are evacuated?
We have a government who can find money to pay to give British territory away, who can pay to plant trees in Uganda, who can fund PHD’s for foreign nationals living in India, who has money to spare to paint rainbows on Police Cars and funding for the policing of naughty Tweets. Yet strangely doesn’t think the provisioning of air defence for an airbase in a volatile region full of psychopaths with drones and ballistic missiles is a priority. Perhaps the defintion of incompetence should be changed to just read “British Politician.”