HMS Dragon arrives off Cyprus

The United Kingdom’s Type 45 destroyer the HMS Dragon has arrived in the waters off Cyprus, British Defence Secretary John Healey said on Monday.

He told the country’s parliament that the ship will now begin “operational integration into Cyprus’ defence”.

The ship had set sail from Portsmouth on March 10, with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer having announced its deployment, alongside the deployment of two AW159 Wildcat helicopters, after Cyprus’ British Akrotiri air force base was hit by an Iranian-made drone at the beginning of the month.

Starmer had then been forced to explain perceived delays to the ship’s deployment, telling the UK’s parliament that the ship was being “carefully … loaded with the anti-strike ammunition and capability that it needs” before it could set sail eight days after the drone strike.

In the meantime, the British defence ministry had at the weekend announced the deployment of 500 “additional personnel” to the country’s bases in Cyprus, while also stating that it has “more jets flying in the region than at any time in the last 15 years”, and that British pilots “have now exceeded 700 flying hours” in operations related to the conflict.

Earlier, a third Wildcat helicopter and a Merlin Mk2 helicopter had also been sent to the island, while Healey had promised that “top experts” had arrived on the island “to help coordinate the air defences”.

Additionally, the dock landing ship the RFA Lyme Bay set sail from Gibraltar last week, and is now also en route to Cyprus.

The HMS Dragon’s arrival comes after Starmer had told Christodoulides that Cyprus’ security is “fundamental” to the UK, and reiterated that the country’s bases in Cyprus “will not be used for any offensive military operations”,

Meanwhile, the British foreign office had announced that Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper had warned her Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi against further attacks on British bases, with the UK giving permission for the United States to use its bases on the UK mainland and in the Indian Ocean to strike Iranian sites targeting the Strait of Hormuz.

The strait is a chokepoint between the most northerly point of Oman and Iran’s southern coast, which provides the only seaborne access between the Persian Gulf and the open ocean, which the Iranian government had effectively closed earlier in the month by mining the waters ad firing on ships attempting to pass through it.

Typically, around 20 per cent of global oil passes through the strait, including European imports from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. As such, many global powers have since been engaged in efforts to have the strait reopened, while the US appears ready to use force in its attempts to achieve this.

The UK’s decision to allow the US to use its bases to strike Iranian sites targeting the strait prompted the Iranian government to retaliate, firing two missiles at the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean.

Neither of the missiles reached their target, with one failing in flight and the other being downed by a US warship in the region.

The attempted firing at Diego Garcia shortly after Friday night’s granting of permission for the US to use British bases to strike sites targeting the Strait of Hormuz echoes the strike on the Akrotiri base on March 2.

Then, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had announced on the evening of March 1 that his government would allow the United States to use its military bases – commonly understood to mean the Diego Garcia base and the Fairford airbase in Gloucestershire, on the UK mainland – in its operations against Iran.

Akrotiri was hit by a drone a couple of hours later, at three minutes past midnight on March 2.

Following the drone strike, Starmer then sought to clarify that British bases in Cyprus are “not being used by US bombers”, though he did stress that the drone had not been fired “in response to any decision that we have taken”.

Instead, he said, it is believed that the drone was fired before he had made his statement on March 1, before landing after his statements concluded.

Later, when asked why the bases in Cyprus are not being used by US forces, he said they “are not suitable”.