A senior Iranian official told Al Jazeera that they did not fire at the UK’s Diego Garcia naval base. Up to now, it was not thought possible that Iran could fire a missile over 1,250 miles or so. Diego Garcia is 2,350 miles away from Iran.
What is known is that neither the UK Defense Ministry nor the U.S. military have stated this happened nor confirmed media reports, and the report that it occurred was nicely timed for a UK decision to expand its military cooperation with the U.S. against Iran
On Friday morning, a few hours before UK ministers were to assemble in London to agree to use of their military bases by the U.S. to attack Iran, the Wall Street Journal and CNN issued reports, citing “unnamed US officials,” that two ballistic missiles were fired at Diego Garcia, with one failing and the other being intercepted by a U.S. warship.
The BBC offered the strangely worded version of a confirmation: “The BBC understands the reports are accurate.” Further, the “BBC understands the missiles were fired by Iran sometime during the period late on Thursday night into Friday morning... UK officials did not provide any details of the attempted Diego Garcia strikes.”
