The UK has not ruled out deploying troops to the Middle East or joining strikes against Iran, The i Paper understands.
While there are no plans to increase the footprint of British troops in the region currently, Western officials said that all options were open.
They said the situation was fast-paced and developing, adding: “Don’t rule anything out.”
One option under consideration is for the Navy to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, where vessels have been attacked by drones in recent days.
The UK sent a warship to the Red Sea in 2024 to protect vessels from drone strikes by the Houthi rebel group, which is affiliated with Iran.
The UK already has fighter jets and other air defence systems in the Middle East, with a F-35B jet and a Typhoon shooting down drones heading towards allied countries in recent days.
It is not yet clear which troops could be deployed, with the Ministry of Defence working to match the right capabilities and teams to the right threat.
Iran has been launching a combination of small, slow-moving drones and exceptionally fast ballistic missiles, demanding a complex and multi-faceted response.
Western officials said that the UK always has forces held at very high readiness to deploy around the world if needed.
The MoD is already buying more LLM (Lightweight Multirole Missiles) – low cost, precision-guided weapons to bolster its stockpiles.
The UK said this week that US would be able to use its bases to attack Iranian missile launchers and storage sites, but it has not yet done so, The i Paper understands.
This would be likely to happen at the UK’s Diego Garcia base in the Chagos Islands or at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, which are both ready to receive US jets.
Iran can continue attacks ‘for several days’
The pace of Iran’s attacks is slowing, but Tehran can continue to launch missile strikes across the Middle East for “several more days”, Western officials believe.
Western assessments of Iran’s capabilities reveal that at its current firing rate, Tehran would run out of missiles in “several days”.
However, Tehran may decide to slow the rate of firing and hold back missiles in order to preserve capabilities for a longer-term fight.
More significant damage to its launch sites and facilities would reduce the scale of its attack capabilities.
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