Two Iranian missiles were fired in the direction of Cyprus but were intercepted, Defence Secretary John Healey has confirmed.
Healey said it was not yet clear whether the missiles were deliberately targeting UK facilities on the island, which hosts two British sovereign base areas, including RAF Akrotiri.
“We are not sure if they were intentionally aimed at our bases,” he said, adding that British officials are still assessing the circumstances of the incident.
He also revealed that around 300 British personnel in Bahrain had been stationed near locations considered potential targets, underlining concerns about wider regional fallout.
RAF jets have been operating from British installations in Cyprus and Qatar as part of ongoing defensive efforts to protect UK forces and allied interests in the region.
Speaking to Sky News, Healey described the situation as serious and deteriorating, warning of the risk of further retaliatory action. He reiterated that the UK had not taken part in the strikes on Iran, but maintained that Tehran represents a significant and growing threat.
Do what you did before, and send a destroyer. Park Duncan off the coast of Cyprus, and have provide terminal phase defence.
Dauntless is currently operating on exercises in the English channel, she should be immediately re tasked to go to Cyprus. I don’t think Israel is going to give up this time so hopefully in the medium term the ballistic missile threat in the Middle East is going to disappear meaning Cyprus won’t need longer term permanent ABM capability.
Actually getting rid of Iran solves many military headaches. With them gone do you even need any forces in the ME anymore. Especially once EV’s and heat pumps take over.
Reported on this site on 27 Feb, Dauntless has entered a 3 month support period. One of the few threads that you haven’t commented on!
Indeed – as good as they are, the Type 45’s cannot be in two places at once 🙄.
“getting rid of Iran”???
You think the USA is going to scorch the entire country with nukes or successfully parachute a liberal western democratic government in to run it (like it did so successfully in Afghanistan and Iraq?).
If neither of these two, then the ME had just become a far more dangerous and unstable region. Best case scenario is that Iran fractures and collapses into a failed state.
Worst case, you have Iranian terrorists detonating conventional bombs across the west, but with their an additional seasoning of enriched uranium. No nuclear cloud, but potentially contaminating places so badly that deaths will continue for decades…
That’s not the only 2 options is it the Iranian people are not afghanis and it’s not Iraq they have wanted rid of the government for years it’s very possible Iran could have a competent government take over and the country could be much more than a failed state
Tim that is so unrealistic, a very large minority in Iran still support the Regime and they are the ones with the weapons. The majority may hate the Regime but how many of those love the US? As in Iraq very few I suspect.
Can’t you read? 🤦🏻♂️
I didn’t say they were the only two options, I presented them as best-case and worst-case options. That’s two options.
However your option is pure fantasy.
Iranians revolting is unrealistic (even though there were mass protests just a few weeks ago), but Iranian terrorists detonating portable nuclear weapons in the west is realistic?
Somebody is too stupid to know a dirty bomb is just an IED with radioactive material added 🤦🏻♂️
Watch out for the nuclear bomb blast, if you keep off your schizo meds you’ll be in a bunker with some flat earthers within a week. I’m sure you’d have a lot in common though.
Wow, so you admit that you do t know the difference between a dirty bomb and a nuclear weapon.
How do you cope being so stupid? I imagine on your left-hand you have tattooed “breathe in” and on the right “breathe out”, otherwise you’d forget to.
Quick get to the bunker
Might take a while.
Even Dale Vince has denounced heat pumps as putting up household bills.
Electric car sales took a sector-shuddering dip last month with registrations rising by just 0.1 per cent.
Private buyers represent a fraction of sales and reflect the limited public demand for battery-powered models.
All of this in pursuit of some unevidenced nut job idea of ‘man made global warming’.
Dotty.
A ridiculous reliance on gas fired power stations is the main reason our energy and electricity costs are so high. Energy prices generally are also stupidly set by the price of Gas generally too. We can only supply 40% of our own gas via the North Sea by the way which is sold on the open market and bought by us on the open market at market prices, the loss of cheap gas generally due to the ban on Russian gas has kept those prices high. The sooner we get ourselves out of the dictat of others on energy costs the better don’t you think? Oil and gas is always going to be in the control of others.
As for that last line I like to base my evidence on that of the science it’s not perfect and it changes as scientific evidence changes as knowledge itself increases that knowledge but what’s the alternative ‘religious certainty’? The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that present global warming is greatly man made, nut job evidence mainly down to the likes of Trump who is so expert on the science he told us to inject ourselves with bleach and shine lethal ultra violet light into our inner organs. So I think I know who I would rather believe on balance thanks, you are free however to believe those making money out of deceiving you however as it turned out with the attack on the MMR jab that so many still foolishly are addicted to believing.
We will need gas fired power stations as back up however much (intermittent) wind/solar generation we have.
The geological history of the planet shows us exactly how flawed the alarmist climate models are:
‘The climate is changing, and the geological record of climate change clearly shows that (a) we live in an unusually cold climate, (b) recent warming is neither dangerous or unusual, and (c) the main drivers of climate change are the sun, the oceans, and plate tectonics.’
Once climate models are able to predict future climate variations, they will be worth taking seriously. For the moment, they cannot.
All the rest is hot air…which at least adds CO2, beneficial crop yields.
Plenty of relatively clean Gas to be produced in UKCS. just need political will to licence exploration and production and robust regulatory framework to mitigate ‘fugitive’ gas escapes. (Norway has done it). Most UK gas burns relatively clean.
Similarly oil will be needed for lubricants, plastics and composits for decades to come.
However. While causes of global warming can be debated, the consequences for many places are severe and are dangerous.. Some places have seen average temp rises of 1.7deg C over past 100 years or so with significant increase in regional catastrophic events. Storms, Flooding, fires, marine algae plumes and sea level rises in many places.
Currently sea levels are averaging 4mm pa rises.
Issue is not what vaused the impacts…issie is ehat can be done to slowdown / mitigate the risks going fwd.
Generally, the more oil and coal that can be replaced by renewables and cleaner gas for energy the better the environment will otherwise be.
Nothing can be done to slow down/mitigate the risks because the climate has always changed.
‘Temperature rise has rarely been uniform or matched emission changes. From 1850 to 1920 temperature rose slowly and erratically with very low emissions. In the 1920’s and 30’s the temperature increased more rapidly and there are accounts of large-scale summer melts in the Arctic on a similar scale to those of the past couple of decades. Yet human emissions were still very low. From 1940 to 1975 the temperature fell, despite emissions really cranking up in the post-WWII boom. From 1975 to 1998 temperatures rose more rapidly again, a little faster than the 1920-30 period, and emissions increased further. From 1998 – 2015 the temperature trend flat-lined despite this being the most intense emissions period to date. Our Covid ‘pandemic’ gave us a great chance to see what a sharp, short drop in emissions would do to the temperature – answer, absolutely nothing!
Since the start of our interglacial, sea level has risen 130 metres, in very dramatic fits and starts at times, and has been up to 2m higher than it is today! And all with the same pre-industrial level of CO2…The current rate of sea level rise is only 1-2mm/year, as measured by tide-gauges, and has seen little variation since 1850. This is entirely expected with modest warming, due to some ice melt and thermal expansion of surface ocean waters.
Humans in positions of power are prone to delusions of grandeur and must find the urge to claim credit for climate change irresistible. However, the large body of scientific data which has been collected over the past century and more overwhelmingly shows that climate change is a natural phenomenon which began aeons before humans even started using fossil fuels. It is not driven by CO2, although we can’t say for sure that this has no effect…
The Sun seems an obvious factor in climate change and we know it goes through different cycles of activity, waxing and waning every 11, 22, 87, 210 and 1500 years. These cycles can counteract or reinforce each other to produce varying intensities of solar radiation. When the Sun is weak more cosmic radiation enters our solar system and research shows this seeds low level cloud on Earth which reflects more solar radiation back to space, cooling the planet. The opposite is true when the Sun is strong. The Sun and clouds certainly influence global temperature, yet these are effectively ignored in the UN models.
Humans have little choice but to adapt and take a practical approach, instead of chasing a half-baked theory that focuses almost exclusively on one causal factor, and fails to hold up to rigorous scientific examination.’
(Intermittent) renewables have to have fossil fuel back up, have serious environmental impacts once their useful life is over and in terms of exploitation of critical minerals, rare earth elements.
There is absolutely no increase in regional catastrophic events, certainly in the U.S., based on extensive historical records.
‘Claims of increased frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts are not supported by U.S. historical data. Additionally, forest management practices are often overlooked in assessing changes in wildfire activity.
Global sea level has risen approximately 8 inches since 1900, but there are significant regional variations driven primarily by local land subsidence; U.S. tide gauge measurements in aggregate show no obvious acceleration in sea level rise beyond the historical average rate.
Attribution of climate change or extreme weather events to human CO2 emissions is challenged by natural climate variability, data limitations, and inherent model deficiencies. Moreover, solar activity’s contribution to the late 20th century warming might be underestimated.
It can be argued about the proportionality of contribution. The issue is about what has tipped the scale and can anything be done about it…or is the strategy to stick head in sand and let it continue to rise at pace it has done since the industrial revolution…which as that revolution has globalised the pace has accelerated.
PS: I work in the hydrocarbon industry and have been fortune enough to work for employers who have left dirty oil and gas in the round (starting in the mid 1990’s) and focused on the production of cleaner reserves. believe you me, many in the industry know the relevant implications of alternate sources of hydrocarbons and the consequences of continuing as they did up until the 1980’s
‘Temperature rise has rarely been uniform or matched emission changes. From 1850 to 1920 temperature rose slowly and erratically with very low emissions. In the 1920’s and 30’s the temperature increased more rapidly and there are accounts of large-scale summer melts in the Arctic on a similar scale to those of the past couple of decades. Yet human emissions were still very low. From 1940 to 1975 the temperature fell, despite emissions really cranking up in the post-WWII boom. From 1975 to 1998 temperatures rose more rapidly again, a little faster than the 1920-30 period, and emissions increased further. From 1998 – 2015 the temperature trend flat-lined despite this being the most intense emissions period to date. Our Covid ‘pandemic’ gave us a great chance to see what a sharp, short drop in emissions would do to the temperature – answer, absolutely nothing!’
Power stations are a great deal cleaner now, particularly gas fired.
Modular nuclear reactors are also clean sources of power.
Batteries, solar panels, wind turbines pollute once their short service life is over and pollute in creating the demand for mining huge quantities of rare minerals etc. Solar and wind require back up power generation from fossil fuel powered generators. Nuclear generators are unsuitable for this purpose.
So renewables are neither efficient or clean. We have simply offshored manufacturing to countries still using fossil fuel power generation, particularly coal fired generation.
Net zero is quite simply batty. Cleaner power generation is a worthy goal but it is not achieved by importing solar panels and wind turbines produced with power generated by coal fired power stations. I haven’t even mentioned the numbers of raptors and other large birds killed by wind farms.
And yet. average temp continue to rise, sea levels rise, storm intensity and frequency increase, droughts and forest fires becoming more frequent. As before. clean gas is the right hydrocarbon for energy and fertilizer. clean oil is the right product for lubricants and composites, dirty coal and dirty oi and dirty gas needs to be eradicated from the atmosphere. (Stopping emissions doesn’t reduce greenhouse gases in the atmoshpere…it only holds it at the prevailing level, you need to create add healthy carbon sinks to consume the carbon. Forests, peat bogs etc or capture and pump underground and lock away (usually in depleted gas reservoirs). That activity is ramping up.
This is becoming a conversation of the deaf:
‘We analyze temporal trends in the number of natural disasters reported since 1900 in the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED). Visual inspection suggests three distinct phases: first, a linear upward trend to around mid-century followed by rapid growth to the turn of the new century, and thereafter a decreasing trend to 2022. These observations are supported by piecewise regression analyses that identify three breakpoints (1922, 1975, 2002), with the most recent subperiod 2002–2022 characterized by a significant decline in number of events. A similar pattern over time is exhibited by contemporaneous number of geophysical disasters – volcanoes, earthquakes, dry landslides – which, by their nature, are not significantly influenced by climate or anthropogenic factors.’
‘Deaths caused by natural disasters since 1900…the decrease over the years is evident and is certainly not due to disasters decrease, but perhaps to a better prevention and defense capacity.” Over the same time period, 1900 to 2020, human population quadrupled – from 2 billion to over 8 billion…’
‘dirty coal and dirty oi and dirty gas needs to be eradicated from the atmosphere’
Of course, there is no dirty coal, dirty oil or dirty gas in the atmosphere.
China, India and the U.S. are responsible for most of the pollutants in the atmosphere. The only way in which we could conceivably affect that would be to import less from those countries. That would require Britain to recommence mass manufacture of a whole range of consumer and industrial items. That would require more reliable sources of power, gas fired power stations and nuclear.
For the last 140 million years, CO2 levels fell precipitously & steadily to within about 30 ppm of the 150 ppm “line of death” below which plants can’t survive. Both the relatively short-term data from ice cores and much longer-term data going back 140 million years (Berner 2001) show an alarming downward trend toward CO2 starvation.
If CO2 is the primary factor driving a warming planet, we should see indications of an acceleration of warming beginning in that period and continuing today, but we do not.
Global warming causing the rise in sea levels and the retreat of the glaciers began long before any significant man-made CO2 increases could have influenced either. Both are directly the result of the natural warming that began in the late 17th-century. The glacial “tipping point” occurred around 1800, with full-on retreat by 1850. Thus began more than 150 years of worldwide glacial retreat and sea-level rise that continues at about the same rate today as it was 150 years ago.
The latest research?
‘Much public discourse in global warming centres around the oft-quoted rise in temperature of approximately 1.1°C in global average temperature in the post-industrial period. This is considered in some quarters to constitute a “Climate Emergency” demanding “Climate Action”. In this paper we first dissect the background behind this number and what it means. Second, we use the
Epica-Vostok Ice core dataset, a single proxy dataset for temperature data sampled every century for the last 800,000 years or so and ask the question “Is a 1.1°C temperature rise in a century unusual in this dataset?”
The answer is surprising. By considering interglacial onsets and decays as well as intermediating Ice Ages, it turns out that a rise of this amount would have been considered unusual more than 200,000 years ago, but this rise is not unusual in the current interglacial which started some 20,000 years ago with around 16% of all centuries since the last Ice Age exhibiting a temperature rise of at least 1.1°C. None of these could have anthropogenic components as they pre-dated the industrial era. This result suggests that attempts to partition the current rise into anthropogenic and nonanthropogenic components are questionable given that it is not even unusual.’
Les Hatton 2026
‘Funding: This study received no funding.
Co-Editor: Francois Gervais; Reviewer 1: J.-E. Solheim, Reviewer 2: anonymous.
Acknowledgements: The author would like to acknowledge numerous conversations with Dr. David King and Dr. Debbie Ancell. The reviewers also helped us substantially in framing the arguments. We would also like to thank the many scientists responsible for acquiring this extraordinary dataset and their foresight in making it publicly available.’
Flat-earther in the house! 😂🤣😂
There is evidence that Planet Earth is not flat.
Man made climate change? You have yet to present anything credible, only embarrassing emojis…
There’s overwhelming evidence of man-made climate-change. You just have to look at the Noble Prizes awarded for work on the subject.
But there’s none so blind as those who refuse to see.
There may have been many weird and (some) wonderful awards but none have been, as you claim, ‘Noble’.
Yet another evidence free atmospheric…
Nobel Prize for Physics, 2021, dip-shit.
The fictional character in Star Trek, Mr Spock,is generally known for his calm, logical demeanour and avoidance of emotional outbursts.
The most outrageous comment that he ever made was, apparently, ‘One damn minute, Admiral’.
Why not follow his example, since you have chosen the name of that distinguished (fictional) alien as your so far entirely unsuitable sobriquet?
For the record, a Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded in 2021 for “for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming”
Unfortunately, subsequently, those models have been unable to replicate the climate of the recent past. It therefore seems vanishingly unlikely that they have any real value in predicting the climate of the future however ‘Noble’ the Nobel…
I chose that as an example as even someone as ignorant as yourself will have heard of the Nobel Prize for Physics. As to what you said about climate models being wrong, we both know you’re resorting to lying now.
Rarely is there any criticism nowadays of the Jungles and Rain Forests having been cut down as the main reason for climate change. Is it because these are run by non Westerners and these same peoples are also responsible for the huge population increases?
If you don’t hear criticism then you’re obviously not following mainstream news.
Yet you criticise the spelling of others 😂😂😂
You really are a bum.
Off your meds I see
😂😂😂
Then again, you probably can’t afford meds as the USA doesn’t have a functioning health system. 🤣
Not American and not a Trump supporter. You’re really grasping at straws now bud, it’s starting to get pathetic.
🤥
Uses American slang, claims not to be an American… 😂
🤥
Or not really
‘The Earth is an unfathomably complex place, a nesting doll of systems within systems. Feedback loops among temperature, land, air, and water are made even more complicated by the fact that every place on Earth is a little different. Natural variability and human-driven warming further alter the rules that govern each of those fundamental interactions.
Some of these systems such as cloud formation are notoriously poorly understood, despite having a major bearing on climate change. And, like clouds, many parts of the Earth system are just too localized for climate models to pick up on. “We have to approximate cloud formation because we don’t have the small scales necessary to resolve individual water droplets coming together,” Robert Rohde, the chief scientist at the open-source environmental-data nonprofit Berkeley Earth, told me. Similarly, models approximate topography, because the scale at which mountain ranges undulate is smaller than the resolution of global climate models, which tend to represent Earth in, at best, 100-square-kilometer pixels. That resolution is good for understanding phenomena such as Arctic warming over decades. But “you can’t resolve a tornado worth anything,” Rohde said.
Models simply can’t function on the scale at which people live, because assessing the impact of current emissions on the future world requires hundreds of years of simulations. Modeling the Earth at one-square-kilometer pixels would take “like a hundred thousand times more computation than we currently have,” Schmidt, of NASA, told me.’
Anyone else find it ridiculous that we have to send a warship to protect an airfield from an air attack?
I disagree. We have unfortunately become so militarily run down that all of our Naval assets should remain for the defence of the British isles for the foreseeable future, with the exception of Anson which is critical to AUKUS and is not a significant combat risk to the sub.
We simply do not have enough ships to send anywhere without leaving more gaps at home let alone the prospect of losing a hull.
It’s a disgraceful state to be in but some acceptance of how bad it is needs to come before and illusions that we can afford to partake in such actions.
Frankly I think the Americans probably wouldn’t want us there either as our I’ll equipped ships would likely create a livability for them to defend.
There isn’t really a threat to the UK at the moment that any of the destroyers are equipped to halt. The frigates and MROSS are better suited to UK operations at the moment. The Type 45s are redundant in reality, for UK operations at this time. Sending one to Cyprus would be a smart move.
This morning, there is not a threat. If you send a T45 to Cyprus it means you have one available to respond if there is a threat to the UK.
We’re escourting Russian warships though the channel with oilers, we are quite simply thread bare and sending a T45 to a war zone without the ability to defend itself against surface threats is a risk we should not be taking.
We should also be avoiding firing £100m of guided missiles that we cannot afford to replace.
I’m of the opinion that in a different world we should be supporting the USA in this, should be doing everything to be preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and should be giving the Iranian people a chance of a better life without persecution from their government, but we simply cannot afford to get involved in this militarily with the financial cost, risk of loss of a ship and gap it leaves in homeland defence in the meantime.
I think it also highlights the issue of having such a small number of hulls and splitting them into specific roles. You send a Burke to a war zone alone and it has a broad spectrum defence cabability. You send either a T45 or T23 alone to a war zone and your asking Americans to cover its deficiencies. T45’s arent even formally capable of ballistic missile defence presently.
A Burke costs more than double a T45 though.
I would question that. The T45’s were about £1bn in 2013, Flight 3 burkes are reported as $2.5bn (£1.8bn) in 2024.
With inflation that’s pretty similar and if you factor in the cost of needing to remedy deisgn flaws and downtime the cost per useful day at sea of the T45 probably is multiples of a Burke.
I am not a fan of small runs of orphaned types and one can only hope that the T26/T31 do not suffer from some inherent design/contsruction issues resulting in a similar situation.
We (and by we I mean Europe as a whole) really need to get to a place of long runs of common types with continuous improvements, spare availability and low rate first batch to test the types prior to the main production batches.
When you split air defense and anti submarine roles and have only handfuls available you have to hope the hull you need for the job is avaible and deployable to the right place at the right time.
We cannot afford large numbers of multi role designs, it simply wont happen. And weve tried and failed european commonality repeatedly. Best we can hope for is just getting replacements for what we have. T83 has already ditched ASW capability.
I could not disagree more, we’d have got more use out of 3 Burkes than 6 Daring class in the last 15 years.
Burkes £1.8bn each at todays prices, a fleet of 20 would be £36bn over 25 years. £1.44bn per year averaged out.
Given the present defence budget is £60bn I would argue that a Destroyer being one of the single highest capital expentures taking up 2.5% of the defence budget isnt a rediculous proposition.
For that you get a common type that can deploy independently anywhere, common maintenence, upgrade paths and the ability to limit any initial design and construction flaws to the first batch.
Hopefully the T83 is an evolition of the T26 and significant commonality exists. Ideally once we get to the T83 we get a sustained uplift in the defence budget and we just commit to a 25 year production run of a large multi role destroyer.
You’re living in pipe dreams, and what nonsense about 3 ships better than 6, that’s how we got into the position we’re in now.
And if you’re really suggesting we should’ve built Burkes well you better hop onboard because they require double the crew and guzzle double the fuel.
We’re not going to build a massive class of 2 Billion pound destroyers, we’ll be lucky to get 6, jog on
Its radar very much is as was discovered in tests a decade ago. Weapon wise it might have some basic ability against the sort of crude stuff being fired but obviously true ballistic missile ability with upgrades to radar and missiles lies in the future. To be fair anti ship ballistic missiles hasn’t been a prime concern until recently, protecting a land mass is going to be immensely expensive, Israel can do it because of the as MTG would echo the excessive US financial and technological support that we simply can’t presently match if ever. But let’s be realistic even Iron Dome is far from fool proof covering a very small Country even against relatively unsophisticated missiles. I wonder how good it would be against highly capable ballistic, stealthy and/or manoeuvring missiles, sophisticated multiple warheads and hypersonic glide vehicles especially used in a tactically astute manner with spoofing and/or without prior warning.
I think we now should do something more kinetic.. Iran has with no direct provocation launched a missile attack on UK sovereign territory.. with the world it is the way it is at the moment we cannot let that go… it’s also a direct article 5 trigger and European NATO needs to consider if it can afford to let it go as well.. Russia is watching and if we want to fail in communication of credibility we had better do more than a defensive posture.
Simply put the UK and European NATO needs to sink some Iranian things… eye for eye tooth for tooth…communication of your credibility.
We don’t know that yet. All we know is that some missile were launched from Iran in the general direction of Cyprus, before being swatted down by either Israeli or American ABMs.
It’s not like there’s anything just in front of Cyprus that might be of interest to the Iranians, either, is there…
The SBAs are not covered under Article 5.
– in essence, the SBAs are military establishments under UK sovereign control. They are not part of the United Kingdom, nor are they states in their own right and thus do not fall under the NATO treaty.
– Also Gibraltar, whilst being a state, is not a NATO signatory thus also not covered despite being a British Overseas territory and hosting a large military base
Article 6: “For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:
on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France 2, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.
on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.”
Yep they are covered
A good summary of what territories are and are not covered in regards to European nations can be found in
“The United Kingdom and European security at a time of uncertainty” David McFarland MBEAugust 28, 2024.
Military commentators have suggested that the Missiles were NOT directly targeting Cyprus, just that they were heading in that general direction, likely targeted at USN Warships in the area 😳.
That makes it a bit different..
Not too late for HMG to reverse course and allow USAF usage of Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford for current op. Symbolic and practical support which, most critically, will not require substantial funding by HMG Treasury. If not, reasonably concerned current administration will reevaluate UK’s reliability as a significant military partner, regardless of the relative merits of specific ops.
Well not sure being US cannon fodder or mere powerless lackies is going to help Labour improve in the polls. Being the 51st State has never gone down well here ever since my parents day. Added to that never has a US Govt been less popular than now and I can see no advantage for Britain or sensible argument based on historical evidence or present socio political circumstances to support taking part in this risky adventure that has more to do with Epstein, the American religious right’s required Old Testament support for Israel and Trump’s desperate attempts to weaken the Chinese economy than any attempt to destroy Irans nuclear intensions. After all the great dictator told us he had totally destroyed those some months back and insulted and even threatened all those who disagreed. No one wishes it works out more than me but like those insightful commentators Rory Stewart (former expert in Middle East affairs in the intelligence services) Jeremy Bowen and Frank Gardner amongst many others I find it difficult to see a positive outcome, hopefully just not a lot worse. Rather not therefore desire Britain to be a rather easier target for revenge than the US itself. Didn’t after all get any support from Trump the last time his mate’s terrorists used a deadly weapon against us in Salisbury. Who the hell would willingly align themselves with such an unreliable would be tyrant with Imperial pretensions who only acts when money flows into his family coffers.
Would not wish relatively short-term considerations to damage long-term relationships RN/USMC/USN relationship is probably solid, if US officer corp not replaced on a wholesale basis to ensure ideological “purity.”. Not as certain re relationships between other services.
It hasn’t though has it. Healey was the one who one presumes you are referring to stating ‘in the direction of’ and he specifically said they were NOT aimed at Cyprus, just in their general direction as indeed practically all missiles from Iran aimed at Israel would be. In fact they would be in the general direction of Europe, Britain and even Greenland, though don’t mention it as it would probably give Trump a further excuse to occupy the latter. Not a good idea to launch attacks based on misinterpretation of clearly stated information that too easily turn into Chinese whispers.
I’d be curious to know what downed them. I’m guessing a US warship?
Do the UK’s Cyprus bases have Sky Sabre or Shorad? Might need it asap if not.
I’d be surprised if Sky Sabre wasn’t deployed to Cyprus but it isn’t really an ABM system of any kind.
More likely that Typhoon, known to be stationed there was cued by F35B or a fixed radar head.
Reports that Pakistan used cueing by ground radars to enable J17s to outwit Indian Rafales. Fair chance that Meteor from a wisely positioned Typhoon could intercept a ballistic missile in terminal descent?
Typhoon has also got a spectacular rate of climb.
It might well launch the Meteor and hand it off to something else to provide mid course correction and maybe terminal guidance.
lol that is just fake news and pakistanu propaganda without a shred of proof to this day
Would be interesting to know exactly how they did outplay Indian opponents on that first day mind. Might have been over confidence, carelessness or a technological play the Indians did not anticipate. Whatever it was seems to have been negated thereafter but there is little evidence at all on what was the cause(s).
You shouldn’t be surprised at how cheap the treasury can be. The MOD’s principle function is currently not defence of the realm it’s Financial Control. MOD hasn’t got the money to do basic things at the moment nevermind deploy a scarce resource to an area it was never intended for.
I’m sadly not surprised.
This is UOR stuff as there is a real threat to life.
It is impossible to run MoD on the tiny real budget they actually have and make capital investments at the same time.
The cuts, dressed up as new money, with intelligence budgets were really the last nail in the groaning coffin. A real fast one was pulled there and folding the UKR spending into MoD’s core budget.
It really screams of the fiscal inexperience of the MoD political team to fall for the old Treasury jam tomorrow ploy.
Not usually.
No fixed bases do.
Mount Pleasant has them….
Cyprus would be a sensible place to deploy on of the sets that exist – it would be a great training run apart from anything else.
True, I’d overlooked the FI deployment.
Arguably one of the least endangered areas of responsibility. That deployment baffles me.
FI is treated as an active integrated 24/7/365 exercise. Sadly less so than it used to be.
It is also about power vacuum – we have to maintain an overwhelming balance of power so nothing stupid happens.
Morning Daniele, its all too revealing what can happen without any protection. Things lose their shine pretty quickly when they get hit. Wonder if the MOD has ever looked at a joint or shared resources Army/RAF Regiment arrangement for GBAD/Shorad (CAMM/LMM-STARSTREAK/30mm) for UK bases? Or, is that asking too much?
The later I’d think, Quentin. I have no idea I’m afraid.
Be pretty embarrassing if it was a US ship that shot them down, considering our shoddy behaviour as an ally to the USA by not letting them use Diego Garcia
And the UK’s refusal to allow the US to use Cyprus. Like it or not, the best friend the UK has in the US is Donald Trump with his morbid obsession with the decrepit British monarchy. One of the fallouts from the UK’s refusal to aid the US in this Iranian endeavor will be a deepening of the growing skepticism in the US of the value of its alliance with the UK, especially given the UK’s deterioration into a third world nation with a government run by leftist authoritarians allied with Islamic fanatics.
Eh?
Trump asked to use Diego Garcia for attack.
Cyprus has a totally different mission profile for USAF shaped around surveillance.
Cyprus isn’t very good for a surprise attack as there a so many civilian spotters on the island that it would be impossible to keep secret.
Couldn’t disagree with you more on the monarchy. I’ll take them over an american style republic any day
But I agree on the leftist politicians under islamist influence
“ given the UK’s deterioration into a third world nation”
Forgotten to take your meds again 🤷🏻♂️😂
A new pair of speck for Spock?
Seems you’re incompetent at spelling too.
“Not aiding and abetting an ally in the committing of a war crime. Specifically Trump’s ‘Special Military Operation’ against Iran.”
There, fixed your comment, you’re welcome.
Did you cry when the great paedophile’s representative on earth, the Ayatollah died? Come on be honest
I can confirm that the people of Iran didn’t, either in Iran or on the streets of my town waving that glorious lion flag instead that repulsive islamist one
TDS makes people like you take some stupid stances I guess
There’s quite a few Iranians attending his funeral, and/or various mourning activities at the moment. Almost as though deciding to bomb a nation, murder a bunch of schoolgirls and annihilate their government doesn’t really endear you in particular with the actual populace of the nation.
If you wanted to get rid of the Ayatollah, there were better ways of doing it.
Yeah I am sure the constant appeasement of Biden and Obama was really teaching those darn Islamists a lesson…..
They were going to give up their nuclear ambitions and terrorist funding activities any day now before this current action, pinkie promise
As Israel proved with Hamas, force is all these animals understand. I look forward to more funerals in the future
Are you calling the >80 people killed as America and Israel bombed a school ‘animals’? Are you suggesting that you llok forward to the funerals of little girls, buried below rubble? For someone who I suspect is rightly outraged attacks on similarly innocent young children in the UK, why are you so despicable in your response to this equal tragedy?
Or are you calling the Iranian regime ‘animals’? In which case, why advocate for British intervention, when the man spearheading this operation has been implicated in a global cabal of child-abusers? For a person so willing to mention paedophilia, you seem strangely eager for the UK to engage in an illegal war on the side of a paedophile.
Why do you think this will teach the ‘Islamists’ a lesson? Force has been shown, time and time again, the catalyse greater radicalism, greater theocratic movements and ultimately greater violence, both in Iran and abroad.
I wonder if you’re old enough to remember the early 2000s, and the Iraqi ‘weapons of mass destruction’. I wonder if you’ve seen the clips of Benjamin Netanyahu, claiming more than a decade ago, that Iran was but weeks from a nuclear weapon. And yet, here you are, claiming that they have ‘nuclear ambitions’.
Leh,
Not certain why you’re deliberately baiting contributors like “Clunker.” Had you pegged as former military, possibly w/ some combat experience? Correct/incorrect guess? In any event, press reports indicate the school was situated relatively close to an IRGC HQ complex. Unfortunately, during significant conflict, even w/ current gen weapons, some collateral damage is possible/probable for a variety of reasons. Perhaps w/ AI, such events will be reduced in the future, but probably never completely eliminated. If this was an American act, there will be an investigation, w/ probable cause(s) determined, and training and tactics potentially revised. Not certain re IAF procedures. Bottom line: war is kinetic and brutal, and many innocent civilians become collateral damage. Ever has been, is currently, and very probably ever more shall be.
I assume the Iranians, like Hamas, place their schools at military targets ready for them to be hit, to then make headlines.
It is amusing, they chuck out BM and Drones almost indiscriminately, yet western forces who go to great lengths ( usually ) to minimise collateral damage, using LGB and such, still manage to hit a school ready and waiting.
Funny that.
A rare voice of reason on here…
Pretty sure the great pedophile is the current incumbent of the White House, given the DoJ is withholding the Epstein files containing allegations against him plus the fact that Trump is named more than any other person in the files that were released. Plus Trump’s own confessions of bursting into the changing rooms of teenage girls, not to mention his rape conviction. But Trump Derangement Syndrome makes you think that a pedophile is worthy of the presidency 🤷🏻♂️
The Ayatollah was a despicable tyrant, and advocate of a fake religion, but there’s no record of him being a pedophile. Just like there’s no record of you being a pedophile either, but maybe I wrong about you both.
Anyway, as you don’t believe in the rule of law I’ll leave you to toddle off to get some shoplifting done before the shops close early.
Ah infantile insults so typical of you judging by your past posts against other decent fellows on this site
Get some help little boy and learn to stop taking things so seriously
Infantile insults? You were the one that brought up pedophilia, clearly something you’re obsessed with…
I think killing people, and pedophilia, are pretty serious things. Clearly you don’t.
‘The Ayatollah was a despicable tyrant, and advocate of a fake religion, but there’s no record of him being a pedophile.’
Firstly, Khomeini married a child.
Under Iranian law after the 1979 revolution, girls can legally marry from 13 and boys from 15, with judges routinely approving even younger marriages, and there are documented cases of girls as young as nine being married off with parental and judicial consent. Some jurisdictions even allow non‑intercourse sexual acts with prepubescent girls. While Iran is one of the most extreme examples, other countries allow child marriage under similar conditions, though none of them are in the West… where any sexual activity with minors is treated as abuse and exploitation. Under his regime, the state lacks protections against child exploitation outside marriage: grooming, coercion, and abuse are largely unpunished if sanctioned by family or authority, children in detention face torture and sexual abuse without accountability, corporal punishment is legally tolerated, and no independent child protection services exist. Khomeini’s legal and religious framework normalises adult–child sexual contact, judges and clerics block proposals to raise the minimum marriage age, and there is no minimum age of sexual consent in Iran, meaning children are systematically exposed.
If you really cared about paedophilia and child abuse in general, you would know all of this and wouldn’t have made such a ridiculous comment. You would be calling out the Iranian regime for it. The same applies to the Epstein files. If you cared about the victims, you would be mentioning the other people named in them. But of course you don’t care. All you care about is Trump. You’re obsessed with him. You’re what we call late stage TDS — past the point of no return.
So you are a liar too.
Khamenei married Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh in 1965 when she was 18 years old.
So not a child bride.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is the only UN member state that has not yet ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The states of California, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Oklahoma have NO STATUTORY MINIMUM age for marriage, with a further 34 allowing child marriage.
Iran looks positively civilised by comparison. Sharia Law makes sex outside of marriage illegal, so the minimum age of marriage is by default the minimum age of consent, dimwit.
If you truly cared about the victims of pedophilia, you’d want prosecuted those who have accusations against them, such as Trump. Instead Congress interrogates people like Hilary Clinton who never even met Epstein.
With his rape conviction, Trump already has form as a sex offender. But with your Trump Derangement Syndrome you can’t even admit that.
Not a liar — depending on the source, her age varies. That’s why I didn’t put an age on it. I read that she was between 13–17, but looking again, I’ve seen ‘up to 18.’ It varies by source, so we don’t know. I’m also against child marriage anywhere, that includes the US.
‘Iran looks positively civilised by comparison. Sharia law makes sex outside of marriage illegal, so the minimum age of marriage is by default the minimum age of consent, dimwit.’
The age of consent in the US varies by state (16–18 so actually higher in some states than a lot of countries). If you are below the age, you cannot legally consent – someone could be charged with rape. In Iran, a 9-year-old can have sex legally because she’s been forced into a marriage and that is more civilised… and I’m the dimwit for having a problem with this 👍
I’ve never heard anyone defend Iran on how they treat young girls before, this is how dangerous TDS can get.
Look, we can just agree to disagree on this one.
The liar is back…
You are straight up lying through your teeth. Over 30,000 marriages of girls between the ages of 10 and 14 were registered in the year 2020 alone in Iran. Iran effectively has no minimum age of marriage, allowing exceptions for marriage below the age of 13 with the consent of a judge and a male guardian
Between 2000 and 2015 roughly 1,000 girls aged between 10 and 14 were married in the US, with 94% being aged 14.
This would mean that Iran has a marriage rate of girls aged 10-14 that is 1,713 times higher than the USA (One thousand seven hundred and thirteen). The last time a girl aged 10 married in the US was 2001, girls under the age of 10 are still being married off in Iran
You were so incredibly wrong about that that I would suggest logging off permanently, and maybe even roping
Khameini met his wife when he was 25 and she was 16-17 and he married her when she was 18 and he was 26. If that’s not weird to you then you need your hard drives checking.
Hillary is still married to Bill, who is all over the Epstein files.
Strange, Trump is mentioned more times in the published Epstein papers yet you go after Clinton. You also overlook the fact news agencies in the USA have identified that all the papers that have victims directly accusing Trump are still being withheld by the DoJ.
I know plenty of people in the U.K. who at 18 married someone. Not a wise decision, most ended up divorced, but not “weird” and completely legal.
You wouldn’t be frothing so much if what I said wasn’t true. While I find it unacceptable that Iran allows such young marriages (roughly 3% according to the UN), I find it completely repugnant that 4 states in America allow even younger marriages. But those are the facts.
As the Trump supporter here, you’re the one most likely to be following his paedophilic example.
There is far more evidence linking Clinton to Epstein than Trump. I’m not defending either, you’re clearly defending one of them.
It is completely legal in Iran to marry a young girl as long as she has hit puberty (which following their prophets example could be as young as 6) Why would you base your morality off legality? England and wales raised the marriage age from 16 to 18 in the past few years, did your morals change with them?
Iran has younger marriages than the US (try to keep up). The last time a 10 year old was married in the US was 2001, in a state that now has a marriage age of 17. Girls under the age of 10 are still married off in Iran.
You are the only person here who has defended child marriage.
Oh look, the liar is lying again. 🤷🏻♂️
Yet you cannot seem to give an example of one lie…
It’s okay pal, it’s tough too admit when we’re wrong, if you like you could just stop responding and pretend this exchange never happened.
🤥
Check out the current age of consent in Iran and keep to the point at issue is my recommend.
Check the current age of marriage in California, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Oklahoma is my recommend, along with not siding with proven liars.
You were arguing in support of the age of consent (age of marriage in Iran).
Why would you say that Iran looks positively civilised compared to the US with child marriage, when the situation in Iran is an order of magnitude worse? Do think child marriage is civilised? Something tells me you wouldn’t want the police to seize your laptop, although given the current state of the UK you’d only get a suspended sentence anyway.
I’m not arguing in support of the age of consent in Iran. I was pointing out that while the Ayatollah was guilty of many crimes, pedophilia was not one of them.
I was pointing out that there were places that were far worse, the example being the 4 states in the USA that have no minimum age for marriage.
But you’re clearly too stupid to understand anything I just explained.
Except Iran has marriages much younger than the US (As I’ve said multiple times). If your IQ was above 80 you might comprehend that.
If my IQ is 80, then yours is in single-digits as I’m running rings around you, proving that you’re an ignorant liar.
You have done nothing except lie and embarrass yourself.
“Iran looks positively civilised by comparison”
Are your exact words referring to child marriage.
Either you were so incredibly misinformed that you should permanently log off/rope (as I’ve suggested before), or you are in favour of child marriage.
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I am hoping the campaign will go on until Iran’s Ballistic Missile capability is eliminated.
If not the MOD should seriously be looking at investing in long range GBAD.
Well if it’s proven that Iran shot at UK sovereign territory in Europe that actually changes the whole strategic landscape..
1) the UK was not involved in the attack on Iran so Iran has without provocation attacked the UK.. that means we can legally and morally strike Iran back.
2) Iran attacked a NATO member in the geographical area covered by the NATO treaty so it’s an article 5
I wonder what will happen now.. because for wider geostrategic reasons the UK and NATO need to respond to someone firing missiles at a NATO member in Europe…
I did not think Iran would be so foolish to attack European NATO.. now we need to see if European NATO has learnt anything about deterrence and the need to communicate capability and credibility to aggressors..
Im giving this a low likelihood probability of being the first match that strikes WW3… ( 0.1% to 10%) but it’s still a risk assessment on WW3 starting now.. so prepers make sure your baked been supplies are up..
USA uses Cyprus bases, I would say thats a legit target in self defence given the USA has initiated military action on Iran.
In any case, we’re not talking a serious threat to Cyrpus, the UK or Europe from Iran in terms of a full scale war and so the response should not be in line with that.
See it for what it is, a militarily weak country currently being overwhealmed by the USA and behaving like its existence is being threatened (which it is).
I support the US action, its shameful that our government denied the USA access to UK bases abroad which is the one resource we do have that could help the USA here.
We’re best off giving Diego Garcia to the USA at this point and letting them sort out the ongoing status of it, ludicrous situation to pay to rent a military base that the USA uses and then tell them they arent allowed to use it.
Trump will certainly not forget easily the denial of use.
If the USA does succeed in its actions, it will no doubt get zero thanks for preventing nuclear proliferation, taking out a disgusting regime and giving the free world increased energy security but instead be met with accusations of the legality of military action against a country intent on getting nuclear weapons in an alliance with Russia and China. Crazy world we’re living in.
The last time the USA succeeded with any military intervention in the Middle-East was the 1991 Gulf War; which tens of thousands of lives, trillions of dollars, and three decades ago.
A military success, but politically, that’s more nebulous. Many of the issues in the 2000s trace back to 1991.
Kuwait would disagree…
But yes, it was Saudi Arabia choosing to let the USA and coalition forces free Kuwait, rather than accepting Bin Laden’s offer, that kicked-off another load of trouble…
So even 1991, the best-result yet, was actually a mixed-bag in historical terms.
Saddam was deposed and the following insurgency was defeated. Iraq is much safer than it was in 2002.
The intervention against ISIS was a dramatic success. In 2014 Iraq was on the brink of collapse, as was Syria, now ISIS is virtually extinct, Iraq is stable, and Syria is doing better than it was in 2013.
Yemens intervention is mixed. AQAP can no longer conduct attacks on western soil, but the Houthis are still around, but it was a very low level intervention to begin with.
That about sums up American intervention in the region, do you make it a habit to be incorrect about everything?
Utterly deranged and living in a fantasy world. Nothing you said there is remotely true 😂🤣😂🤣😂
Saddam was defeated (fact)
The insurgency that followed was defeated (fact)
Iraq was on the brink of collapse in august 2014 (fact)
ISIS is virtually extinct in the region (fact)
Iraq is stable (fact)
AQAP was one of the most capable AQ offshoots in conducting attacks in the west (fact)
Now it isn’t (fact)
Was that easy enough for you to understand buddy?
So you managed to kill Saddam, and thousands of US troops by too through the insurgency. Iraq continues to be politically unstable with ISIS operating. Fact.
Houthis still control 80% of Yemen’s population despite the U.S.backed Saudi intervention and the air-war conducted last year. Fact.
After sacrificing thousands of troops occupying Afghanistan, Trump negotiated to give it back to the Taliban. Fact.
You not my buddy, dip-shit.
Iraq is not politically unstable (at all) ISIS is non existent in Iraq. The last major terrorist attack was 2 years ago, the last US drone strikes more than a year ago. The country is doing so many order of magnitudes better than it was 25 years ago.
During the Saudi led intervention against the Houthis, how many airstrikes did the US military carry out against the Houthis. How many ground raids? How many troops killed or wounded? Not an American intervention by any stretch of the imagination.
Afghanistan is not in the Middle East, you need to brush up on your geography skills.
🤥
😘
I’m guessing you’re also a flat-earther, believe 5G towers cause Corvid-19, and that race-replacement is real 🤣
Not familiar with Corvid-19 pal. Is the grammar Nzi starting to slip up there?
Better a grammar Nazi a real one like yourself.
Oh buddy, your spelling and grammar has really dropped off a cliff since you called that other guy out. Now your comments are missing entire words. I truly feel sorry for you.
🤥
😘
The SBAs are not covered under Article 5.
– in essence, the SBAs are military establishments under UK sovereign control. They are not part of the United Kingdom, nor are they states in their own right and thus do not fall under the NATO treaty.
– Also Gibraltar, whilst being a state, is not a NATO signatory thus also not covered despite being a British Overseas territory and hosting a large military base
“For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:
on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France 2, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.
on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.”
Yep they are covered
A good summary of what territories are and are not covered in regards to European nations can be found in
“The United Kingdom and European security at a time of uncertainty” David McFarland MBEAugust 28, 2024.
This government has a chronic aversion to truth. “Aircraft in the air”, “missiles launched in the direction of Cyprus”. All suggest action and being dynamically involved. The truth is probably less exciting which also nicely aptly sums up our Prime Minister. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a Human Rights Lawyer successfully evolving into a man of action. If theres a reason for not doing something he’ll find it.
Be wary of anything from any source is my advice. Question everything, think in a lateral manner. Just look at the clowns running this shit show.