UK Defense Secretary John Healey declines to explicitly back strikes by the United States and Israel on Iran, saying it was for the US to “set out the legal basis of the action it took.”
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the airstrikes yesterday.
Healey tells the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that Britain played no part in the strikes, but it did share the aim of the United States and other allies in the region that Iran should never have a nuclear weapon.
Asked if he believes the strikes were within international law, Healey says: “It is for the US to set out the legal basis of the action that it took.”
Healey says Iran was retaliating in an increasingly indiscriminate way, targeting civilian airports and hotels as well as military bases.
“We have strengthened the UK defenses in the region, we are active in regional defense operations,” he tells Sky News.
He says UK aircraft are operating from bases in Qatar and Cyprus and are intercepting drone attacks on bases and allies.
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