LONDON — Iran has launched missiles at Diego Garcia, an Indian Ocean island that is home to a strategic U.K.-U.S. military base.
Britain condemned “Iran’s reckless attacks” after the unsuccessful attempt to hit the base. It’s unclear how close the missiles came to the island, which is about 2,500 miles from Iran.
Here is what to know about the remote base.
U.S. operations hub
The U.S. has described the Diego Garcia base as “an all but indispensable platform” for security operations in the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa.
Home to about 2,500 mostly American personnel, it has supported U.S. military operations from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008, the U.S. acknowledged it also had been used for clandestine rendition flights of terrorism suspects.
Last year the U.S. deployed several nuclear-capable B-2 Spirit bombers to Diego Garcia amid an intense airstrike campaign targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Britain initially refused to let the base be used for U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran, but after Iran responded with strikes on its neighbors, the U.K. said American bombers could use Diego Garcia and another British base to target Iran’s missile sites. On Friday, the British government said that includes sites being used to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
The U.K. says the British bases can be used only for “specific and limited defensive operations.”
But Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on X that Prime Minister Keir Starmer “is putting British lives in danger by allowing UK bases to be used for aggression against Iran.”
Iran has a self-imposed limit on its ballistic missile program, limiting the range to 1,240 miles. Diego Garcia is well outside that range. U.S. officials, however, long have alleged that Iran’s space program could allow it to build intercontinental ballistic missiles.
A contested island chain
Diego Garcia is part of the Chagos Archipelago, a chain of more than 60 islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, about 1,000 miles from the tip of India. The islands have been under British control since 1814, when they were ceded by France.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Britain evicted as many as 2,000 people from Diego Garcia so the U.S. military could build the base there.
In recent years, criticism has mounted over Britain’s control of the archipelago and the way it forcibly displaced the local population. The United Nations and the International Court of Justice have urged Britain to end its “colonial administration” of the islands and transfer sovereignty to Mauritius.
Trump has criticized U.K. plans for the island
After long negotiations, the British government struck a deal last year with Mauritius to hand over sovereignty of the islands. Britain would then lease back the Diego Garcia base for at least 99 years.
The U.K. government says that will safeguard the future of the base, which is vulnerable to legal challenge. But the agreement has been criticized by many opposition politicians in Britain who say giving up the islands puts them at risk of interference by China and Russia.
Some of the displaced Chagos islanders and their descendants also have challenged the deal, saying they were not consulted and it leaves them unclear on whether they will ever be allowed to return to their homeland.
The U.S. administration initially welcomed the deal, but President Trump in January changed his mind, calling it “an act of GREAT STUPIDITY.”
Starmer’s initial refusal to let the U.S. attack Iran from Diego Garcia further angered Trump, who said this month that “the U.K. has been very, very uncooperative with that stupid island that they have.”
Passage of the U.K.-Mauritius deal through Britain’s Parliament has been put on hold until U.S. support can be regained.
Lawless writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai contributed to this report.
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