LONDON: UK Defense Minister John Healey suggested on Thursday that Russia was influencing Iran\u2019s use of drone attacks in its war with the United States and Israel.<\/p>\n
Healey said Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s \u201chidden hand\u201d may be behind some of the tactics deployed by Tehran in the Middle East conflict, which started when the United States and Israel struck Iran on February 28.<\/p>\n
He told reporters that officials were analyzing an Iranian-made drone that hit the UK\u2019s Akrotiri air force base in Cyprus on March 1 \u201cfor any evidence of Russian or any other foreign components and parts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will update you and appropriately publish any findings from that when we\u2019ve got them,\u201d he said during a visit to Britain\u2019s military headquarters in Northwood, near London.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think no one will be surprised to believe that Putin\u2019s hidden hand is behind some of the Iranian tactics, potentially some of their capabilities as well, not least because one world leader that is benefiting from the sky high oil prices at the moment is Putin,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Russia is a close ally of Iran, with the two agreeing last year to help each other counter \u201ccommon threats.\u201d<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump said Saturday he had no indication Russia was supporting Iran in the war, but that if they were, it was not \u201chelping much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nick Perry, the British military\u2019s chief of joint operations, told Healey there were \u201cdefinitively\u201d signs of a link between Russia and Iran, including Iran\u2019s use of drones \u201cas learned from the Russians.\u201d<\/p>\n
No one was injured when the drone hit a hangar at Akrotiri. British warplanes shot down a further two drones heading for the base the same day.<\/p>\n
Guy Foden, a brigadier in the British army, briefed Healey that UK troops based at a military base housing international coalition troops in Irbil, Iraq, had helped shoot down two Iranian drones on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON: UK Defense Minister John Healey suggested on Thursday that Russia was influencing Iran\u2019s use of drone attacks in its war with the United States and Israel. Healey said Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s \u201chidden hand\u201d may be behind some of the tactics deployed by Tehran in the Middle East conflict, which started when the United …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":95058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95059,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95043\/revisions\/95059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}