British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced that the UK will be sending four additional fighter jets to Qatar amid the ongoing Iran war.
The four Typhoon planes will join an existing UK squadron in the Gulf state “to strengthen our defensive operations in Qatar and across the region,” Starmer told reporters. He also said Wildcat helicopters with anti-drone capabilities are being sent to Cyprus.
The announcement came after UK Defence Secretary John Healey arrived in Cyprus following a drone strike on a Royal Air Force base on the Mediterranean island earlier this week.
An Iranian-made unmanned drone struck a hangar at the base at Akrotiri on Monday. Two further drones detected that day were shot down by British warplanes.
The pair discussed how “the UK is further reinforcing our air defences to support our shared security,” Healey said in a post on X.
It came after Britain’s Labour government faced criticism from the Cypriot authorities related to its response to the attacks.
On Wednesday, Cyprus’s High Commissioner to the UK Kyriacos Kouros said Cypriots were “disappointed” at the level of information-sharing with residents.
“Let’s say the people are disappointed, the people are scared, the people could expect more,” he told the BBC’s Newsnight programme.
Starmer told a news conference on Thursday that two Wildcat helicopters armed with Martlet missiles that can take down drones will arrive in Cyprus on Friday.
He had announced their deployment on Tuesday, adding that he was also dispatching “helicopters with counter drone capabilities” as part of Britain’s “defensive operations” in the region.
Starmer has also deployed HMS Dragon, a Type 45 air defence destroyer capable of launching eight missiles in under 10 seconds and guiding up to 16 missiles simultaneously.
However, according to officials, it is not due to set sail until next week.
Starmer has faced criticism from the opposition Conservative party that he has been too slow to deploy resources to the region.
The premier insisted that throughout January and February, the government has moved fighter jets, air defence missiles and advanced radar systems to the region.
UK Typhoon and F-35B jets have been operating in the Middle East since the Iran war began on Saturday with US-Israeli strikes on Tehran and other cities in the country.
Starmer initially refused to have any role in the war but later agreed to a US request to use two British military bases — in Gloucestershire and the UK-US Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean — for a “specific and limited defensive purpose”.
Starmer has insisted that the Akrotiri base is not being used by US jets.
Monday’s drone strike there caused minimal damage and no casualties, British officials said. Service personnel’s families have been moved away from the base as a precaution.
