After Iran launched missiles at Diego Garcia, the remote island in the Indian Ocean that hosts a strategic U.K.-U.S. military base, Britain condemned what it called “Iran’s reckless attacks,” while officials said it was unclear how close the missiles came to the island, which is about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) from Iran, according to the Associated Press.
U.S. officials have long described Diego Garcia as central to operations across multiple regions. The AP report said the United States has described the base as “an all but indispensable platform” for security operations in the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa, and noted that the base is home to about 2,500 mostly American personnel. The report said the base has supported U.S. military operations from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The AP account also pointed to the base’s role in more than one type of U.S. mission over time. It said that in 2008, the United States acknowledged the island had been used for clandestine rendition flights of terror suspects. The report also said that 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’s role in enabling U.S. military use of Diego Garcia for strikes tied to Iran has been part of the diplomatic fallout. The AP report said Britain initially refused to let the base be used for U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran, but after Iran launched attacks on its neighbors, the U.K. said American bombers could use Diego Garcia and another British base to attack Iran’s missile sites. The report said that includes sites being used to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and that the U.K. says the British bases can only be used for “specific and limited defensive operations.”
Iran’s response included direct criticism of the U.K. decision-making. The AP report said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X that Prime Minister Keir Starmer “is putting British lives in danger by allowing UK bases to be used for aggression against Iran.” The AP report also said that Iran previously imposed a self-limit on the range of its ballistic missile program to 1,240 miles (2,000 kilometers), while Diego Garcia is well outside that range, and that U.S. officials have long alleged Iran’s space program could allow it to build intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Defense analysis cited in the AP report suggested a possible link between the missile attempt and Iran’s space capabilities. The report said Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said the attempt to hit Diego Garcia may have involved improvised use of Iran’s Simorgh space launch rocket, which could offer greater range as a ballistic missile but at the cost of reduced accuracy.
Beyond the immediate war context, the AP report framed Diego Garcia within a long-running sovereignty dispute over the Chagos Archipelago, which includes more than 60 islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean off India’s tip. It said the islands have been under British control since 1814, after France ceded them. The report also said Britain evicted as many as 2,000 people from Diego Garcia in the 1960s and 1970s so that the U.S. military could build the base, and that criticism has grown in recent years over Britain’s control and the displacement of the local population.
The AP report said the United Nations and the International Court of Justice have urged the U.K. to end its “colonial administration” of the islands and transfer sovereignty to Mauritius. It added that after long negotiations, the U.K. government struck a deal last year with Mauritius to hand over sovereignty of the islands, while Britain would lease back the Diego Garcia base for at least 99 years.
The AP report said the agreement has drawn criticism from British opposition politicians who argued that giving up the islands could create risks related to interference by China and Russia. It also said some of the displaced Chagos islanders and their descendants have challenged the deal, saying they were not consulted and that it leaves them unclear whether they will ever be allowed to return.
U.S. politics also entered the picture in the AP account. It said the U.S. administration initially welcomed the deal but that U.S. President Donald Trump changed his mind in January, calling it “an act of GREAT STUPIDITY” on his social media platform Truth Social. The AP report said Starmer’s earlier refusal to let the U.S. attack Iran from Diego Garcia angered Trump, who earlier this month said “the U.K. has been very, very uncooperative with that stupid island that they have.” It added that passage of the U.K.-Mauritius deal through Parliament has been put on hold until U.S. support can be regained.