UK sending air defence systems to Gulf ‘to help counter Iranian missiles’

Britain is sending short-range air defence systems to the Gulf to help counter Iranian missile attacks, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday.

“We’re deploying short-range air defence systems to Bahrain at speed,” Starmer told a parliamentary committee, adding the UK was “doing the same with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia”.

The UK is working with industry to “distribute air defence missiles to Gulf partners”, which have faced waves of Iranian barrages in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes, and has embedded airspace specialists there, Starmer said.

Defence Minister John Healey told Parliament the country would be deploying its Rapid Sentry anti-drone system to Kuwait.

He called this a “battle-tested ground-based air defence missile system that has already proved highly effective for UK forces taking down drones in the region”.

A British warship, HMS Dragon, has also arrived in the eastern Mediterranean to defend Cyprus, Healey said.