British military bases in the Middle East would be vulnerable to Iranian ballistic missile attacks if Tehran seeks to widen its response to Israel’s ongoing air assault to include Western countries, experts have warned.
Iran has already threatened reprisal attacks on British, American and French facilities in the region should any of those countries intervene to defend Israel from Tehran’s counter-strikes.
US President Donald Trump appears to be mulling going one step further and joining the Israeli assault, saying on Tuesday that he was “not too much in the mood to negotiate” with Iran. There were multiple reports on Wednsday that behind such words lies the threat of Trump ordering US B2 bombers drop Washington’s fearsome 30,000lb “bunker buster” bombs on Iran’s most heavily-protected nuclear facilities.
Yet, even as Tehran struggles to fend off Israel’s campaign to target its nuclear programme and decapitate its military leadership, it retains an array of offensive measures against Western powers, ranging from “lone wolf” terror attacks to missile strikes, to economic warfare to restricting oil supplies.
It was being further reported on Wednesday that US intelligence reports suggest Tehran has prepared missiles and other options for strikes on American bases and troops in the Middle East should Washington join the war.
In such a geo-political tinderbox, Britain is treading carefully. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced at the weekend that assets including RAF Typhoon jets were being moved to the Middle East as a “contingency” against the unravelling security situation in the region. At the same time London is emphasising that it has not as yet intervened in support of Israel and wants to see de-escalation.
But military sources and experts have warned that the UK faces “dilemmas” should Iran choose to make good on its threats, not least because it has only limited options in the region to defend against Tehran’s ballistic missiles.
Britain has four military installations in the Arabian Gulf alongside its main regional airbase at RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus – all of which would be within range of Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles as well as its drones and cruise missiles.
After several decades in which the UK’s longstanding military presence in the Middle East had been wound down in the wake of the Cold War, its ability to station naval and air power in the region has been put firmly back on the agenda in the last decade.
The UK now has two naval bases within or adjacent to the Arabian Gulf – the UK Naval Support Facility (UKNSF) in Bahrain and a Royal Navy logistics hub at Al Duqm port in Oman, which is large enough to accommodate nuclear submarines and Britain’s two aircraft carriers. The Bahrain base, previously known as HMS Jufair, is home to a detachment of UK minehunter vessels as well as a Royal Navy frigate.
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Britain also has two airbase facilities, albeit shared with other allies. Royal Air Force jets operate out of the Al Udeid base in Qatar, which is also home to Washington’s regional military command. Since last year, the UK has also operated a “permanent military centre” at the Al Minhad air base in the United Arab Emirates.
Alongside these larger-scale deployments, Britain has smaller detachments of troops in Iraq, where they participate in Operation Shader, an international force combating rump elements of the Islamic State, as well as forces in Jordan and in the Red Sea.
The UK government has justified this renewed Middle East military presence as a bulwark for regional stability in “an uncertain world beset by turbulent times”.
But it also puts UK forces in eye of the regional storm generated by Operation Rising Lion – the name given to Israel’s ongoing campaign designed to end Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon and quite possibly its entire regime.
One Western security source said: “It will have escaped no-one’s attention that the American, British and other allied forces amassed in Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Oman are squarely within a few minutes flying time of Iran and its missiles. The flipside of an ability [by the West] to project force in the Persian Gulf is being within easy reach of those we seek to deter.”
How well can the UK defend its assets?
A key problem for Britain is the technical difficulties of defending any area of air space against the threat posed by ballistic missiles.
Unlike other strike weapons such as drones or cruise missiles, which follow a flat trajectory at a comparatively moderate speed, ballistic weapons are notoriously difficult to intercept because of their huge speed and variable trajectories.
Iran has spent many years developing its own formidable arsenal of ballistic missiles, including its latest weapon – the Haj Qasem missile, named after the assassinated Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and equipped with a navigable warhead designed to evade anti-missile defences such as Israel’s Arrow system and America’s Patriot batteries.
Experts at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) think tank point out that any expansion of the current conflict therefore creates “additional dilemmas” for London. In a briefing released earlier this week, Rusi said: “[Britain] has personnel at both US and UK facilities across the Middle East, and essentially no ballistic missile defences of its own.”
The result is that Britain can use assets such as RAF Typhoon jets or the ground-based Sky Sabre radar-guided missile system to intercept drones or cruise missiles targeting locations such as RAF Akrotiri. But it is highly likely to find itself reliant on Patriot batteries and similar systems operated by US forces and some allies such as Qatar to counter a ballistic missile attack on Arabian Gulf facilities such as Al Udeid or UKNSF.
Britain’s only system capable of countering ballistic missiles is the Type 45 Royal Navy destroyer armed with the Sea Viper interceptor system. The effectiveness of the Sea Viper was demonstrated late last year when it destroyed a ballistic missile fired by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea.
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However, the Type 45 programme has been dogged by delays and refits, meaning that the Royal Navy’s full complement of six vessels is not always available. As recently as last December, just two Type 45s were in active service.
The Western security source said: “If we take the Americans out of the equation, Nato countries including the UK are in a weak position as far as missile defence is concerned anywhere from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf. There is a risk that the situation in the Middle East will expose that weakness.”
Experts have also pointed out that Britain would need to provide or call upon additional support in the event that it was called upon to deploy its four mine-hunting vessels from Bahrain to counter any attempt by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz.
This is the notorious bottleneck in the Arabian Gulf through which about a fifth of the world’s demand for petroleum products passes. Iranian state media has reported a threat from legislators in Tehran to close the strait, probably by laying mines across the 30-mile passage and intercepting passing vessels.
The Rusi briefing pointed out that in order for the UK minehunters to operate, they would need protection from Iranian fast boats or coastal defence missiles.
How likely is an Iranian strike on British targets?
As Israel seeks to inflict ever increasing losses on Tehran, a key and as yet unknowable factor is whether or not the Iranian leadership will decide it must resort to all remaining means at its disposal in order to bolster its existence.
To date, there has been a calculation among Western intelligence services that the Iranian regime recognises its interests – and quite possibly its existence – are significantly reliant on keeping America from entering the conflict.
It also likely to be facing significant material constraints. According to Israeli estimates, at least a third of Tehran’s estimated pre-war stock of 2,000 missiles has been destroyed and its ability to launch further attacks is limited by Tel Aviv’s apparent control of Iranian air space.
However, amid increasing noises from Washington that it is at least re-examining its priorities with regard to a willingness to negotiate with Iran, there is concern that Tehran’s ageing leaders will decide a path to confrontation is preferable to the idea of swallowing their pride and seeking an accommodation with Israel and the US over their nuclear ambitions.
Sir Alex Younger, the former head of MI6, said there was a worst-case scenario in which amid disinformation and miscalculation, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and what remains of his inner circle allow “the heart to rule the head”.
He said: “[In this scenario] they go all in – asymmetric warfare, cyber attacks, terrorism, closing the Strait of Hormuz.”
It is not difficult to see how in such a situation, an attack on American interests could escalate to include the UK, or at least leave Britain with little choice other than to intervene to defend its own interests and those of its allies.
One potential threat comes from Iran’s proven penchant for seeking to cause problems on British soil. Tehran’s intelligence services have previously been implicated in multiple attempts to target dissidents on British soil.
As the Western security source put it: “Even by the standards of the Middle East and Iranian paranoia, the current situation is volatile and liable to unintended consequences. The concern must be that it would not take much – a provocation on the streets of London or Washington – to cause this war to spread beyond Tel Aviv and Tehran.”
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