A US Air Force B-1 bomber takes off from RAF Fairford on March 10 in England. Photo / Getty Images
Iran has developed intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking London, Israel has warned British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Iran attempted to attack the joint British-United States Diego Garcia military base on the Chagos Islands with two missiles.
One was intercepted by a US warship and the second failed in flight, United Kingdom government sources confirmed yesterday.
The attempted strike – launched from some 3860km away – marked the first confirmed use of long-range ballistic missiles by Tehran.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and Western military experts said it showed the regime now had weapons capable of hitting European capitals, as well as Britain.
Today the IDF said the strike showed for the first time that Iran had weapons that could reach a distance of 4000km, posing an immediate threat “to dozens of countries in Europe, Asia and Africa”.
“We have been saying it: The Iranian terrorist regime poses a global threat. Now, with missiles that can reach London, Paris or Berlin,” it said.
Despite the significance of the attempted Diego Garcia strike, the British public was not immediately informed, with news of the foiled attack – thought to have happened at some point in the past few days – only emerging following reports in American media.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch accused the Prime Minister of trying to “cover up the truth”, while Reform’s Nigel Farage said he had “no doubt that if this story had not come out in the media, the Government would not have told the public”.
It comes as Starmer faces pressure from his own MPs to keep Britain out of the escalating conflict.
Farage told the Telegraph: “Sir Keir Starmer has been deceitful and dishonest by not telling the British public that our own sovereign British territory has been attacked. They obviously know now that the Chagos deal is completely sunk, the major foreign policy plank of the Starmer Government was giving away Chagos and they know with this, it is the end – finito, gone, done. And they would rather not face up to it.
“The Prime Minister is a coward and he is not prepared to stand up for British sovereign interests, let alone take responsibility for them.
“His own party is moving to a very extreme hard-left, Islamist-allied position, and that’s why he behaves the way he does. It’s a desperate state of affairs.”
Badenoch said: “Keir Starmer has dithered and delayed on the Iran conflict from the outset. Now we find out, from the media and not the Prime Minister, that the British base on Diego Garcia has been the target of Iranian missile attacks.
“As we saw with Peter Mandelson, Starmer’s first instinct is always to cover up the truth. On Wednesday, he attacked me at PMQs for calling for the proper defence of our bases.
“Now we learn that, as he did so, our base in the Chagos Islands was being targeted by Iran. The Prime Minister needs to immediately come clean about the details of this latest attack on British troops and explain why the public weren’t informed sooner.”
The Government is yet to confirm exactly when the attack took place, saying only that it was before it gave permission yesterday for the US to launch strikes against Iran from Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford.
Iranian officials told the Telegraph that the failed attack was “a warning shot” to Britain.
However, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said that the UK would not carry out offensive strikes in response to Iran’s attempted attack on the British-American base.
The Foreign Secretary said the Government would support “defensive action”, adding that Britain had chosen a different stance to those of the US and Israel.
She said: “Our approach to this conflict has been the same throughout. We were not and continue not to be involved in offensive action, and we’ve taken a different view from the US and Israel on this, but we are supporting defensive action, to support our interests in the UK national interest.
“As the Prime Minister has made clear, we will provide defensive support against these reckless Iranian threats, but we have not been, and we continue not to be involved in offensive action, and we want to see the swiftest possible resolution.”
Donald Trump, the US President, previously warned that Iran was developing long-range missiles capable of striking Europe, citing it as one of the core reasons behind US-Israeli strikes.
In a television broadcast on February 28, hours after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been assassinated, Trump said: “[Iran] attempted to rebuild their nuclear programme and continued developing the long-range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland”.
Today Starmer held phone calls with foreign leaders including Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa of Bahrain and Nikos Christodoulides, the Cypriot President.
During the call with Christodoulides, the Prime Minister reiterated his commitment that RAF Akrotiri would not be involved in his agreement with Trump on the use of British bases in the war.
It comes after Christodoulides said earlier this week that when the war finished, he would demand negotiations about the future of Britain’s “colonial” military bases on the island.
Lieutenant-General Eyal Zamir, the IDF chief of staff, said that Iran had used Khorramshahr-4 intermediate-range ballistic missiles in its failed Diego Garcia strike, saying these were specifically designed to hit European capitals.
“Iran launched a two-stage intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 4000 kilometres towards an American target on the island of Diego Garcia,” he said.
“The missiles were not intended to hit Israel. Their range reaches the capitals of Europe. Berlin, Paris and Rome are all within direct threat range.”
Douglas Barrie, a military aerospace specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank, told the Wall Street Journal that Paris and London were roughly the same distance from Tehran as Diego Garcia, suggesting that the European capitals were in range of the regime’s weapons.
General Richard Barrons, a former head of the UK’s Joint Forces Command, agreed that the attempted strikes revealed that Iran’s missiles were “more capable than first believed”.
Speaking to the Today programme, he said: “Previously we thought Iran’s missiles had a range of 2000km, and Diego [Garcia] is 3800km from Iran”.
Starmer is facing pressure from the vocal left of his party, which continues to oppose allowing the US to use British bases for “defensive” strikes in Iran.
Backbench Labour MPs have said Parliament should be recalled to vote on the US use of the bases and have criticised the Prime Minister for his perceived support for Trump’s “illegal war”.
Anti-war protesters marched through London today, chanting “US, UK go to hell” and “Iran, Iran make us proud. Shut the US bases down”.
The demonstrators were also seen waving the tricolour Iranian regime flags and brandishing pictures of the late Supreme Leader.
Defending the Prime Minister, a Labour spokesman said: “Keir Starmer has consistently shown calm, level-headed leadership in response to the conflict in Iran. The PM has been focused from the outset on protecting our people, personnel and allies from Iran’s reckless attacks.
“In stark contrast, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage have shown appalling judgment and have tried to distance themselves from their initial calls for the UK to be drawn into this war without a clear legal basis or a plan.”
The Israel-US coalition and Iran continued to trade blows today. Israel’s military said an Iranian missile struck a building in the southern town of Dimona, which is home to a nuclear facility, wounding dozens.
Dimona hosts a facility just outside the main town, widely believed to possess the Middle East’s sole nuclear arsenal, although Israel has never admitted possessing nuclear weapons.
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor’s Picks, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week’s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here.