Several US soldiers were injured in an Iranian drone attack on a British base in Iraq. British air defenses managed to shoot down two drones, but other drones evaded defenses and hit an air base in Erbil, northern Iraq, on Wednesday night, military officials in charge of defending the base said. Italy is withdrawing all troops from the base.
This is the third successful attack on British forces since the war began two weeks ago.The unidentified number of “One-way attack bombs” (suicide drones) attacked U.S. troops stationed there, evading the air defense system of the base, injuring them. “There were several attacks last night in both Erbil and Baghdad, and the attacks were highly coordinated,” said Brigadier Guy Foden, assistant chief of staff at the Operations Branch of the Permanent Joint Headquarters. “We have our staff in Erbil who are currently helping to defend the base. Last night, they shot down two drones. However, several drones have hit the camp.”
The same base was attacked on March 1, where British personnel were stationed just within 400m from the site of the missile strike.A day later, a drone hit the UK air base in Cyprus’s RAF Acroti. According to the Cyprus authorities, there were no casualties and the extent of the damage was “slight”.
“Kier Starmer has dragged Britain to another illegal war,” British MP Jeremy Corbyn told Middle East Eye. By doing so, he puts the security of all of us at risk. The sooner the government realises the importance of his mistake, the better. This means stopping his involvement in this illegal war and the cancellation of foreign use or permission of British bases.”
The United States is using British military bases on the way to attack Iranian missile sites. In the past week, numerous U.S. B-1 Lancer bombers have taken off from the Royal Air Force (RAF) in Gloucestershire, southern England, to carry out attacks on Iran.
On Thursday (March 12) three bombers returned from a US strike mission and landed at RAF Fairford. British Prime Minister Kier Starmer has resisted calls from opposition politicians to join the attack on Iran, but did not condemn the US-Israeli attack.
Italy is withdrawing all its troops from the base. Italy has announced the withdrawal of all its troops after a drone strike on a military base in the northern Iraqi semi-autonomous Kurdistan. Italian ministers said the move would be completed with the already started-up of the army. “No one was injured in Wednesday’s attack, Defense Minister Guido Croceto told the Italian news programmer. The plan to withdraw troops was done earlier.”
Sourced from Al Jazeera.