11 min ago
British defense secretary says Iran lashing out “indiscriminately” across Middle East
By
Christian Edwards
Defence Secretary John Healey speaks to the media outside BBC Broadcasting House in London on Sunday.
Jonathan Brady/PA Images/Alamy/SIPA
Britain’s defense secretary said the Iranian regime is responding to the US-Israeli strikes with “indiscriminate” attacks across the Middle East, including by targeting British military assets in the region.
“The concern now is that this regime is lashing out, it’s lashing out in an increasingly indiscriminate and widespread way,” John Healey told Sky News on Sunday.
Healey said there were 300 personnel at Britain’s base in Bahrain, which was targeted Saturday by Iranian missiles and drones. Some of the personnel were “within a few hundred yards” of where the missiles and drones landed, he said.
Also on Saturday, two missiles were “fired in the direction of Cyprus,” he said.
“We don’t think they were targeted at Cyprus,” he clarified. “But nevertheless it’s an example of how there is a very real and rising threat from a regime that is lashing out widely across the region, and that requires us to act … defensively.”
The defense secretary also said the Iranian regime was a “source of evil” in the region, listing a string of ways in which it has “menaced” countries abroad and cracked down on its citizens at home.
“Twenty terror plots directed at Britain, sponsored by Iran; tens of thousands of young people, protesters, murdered on the streets in the last few months in Iran; 57,000 Iranian drones fired by Russia into Ukraine; proxy groups that destabilize countries right across the region,” Healey said.
