Iran has dismissed allegations that it targeted a joint military base of the United States and the United Kingdom on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia with missiles, with Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei on Monday rejecting the claim as an "Israeli false flag" attack. Baghaei stated that the accusations reflect a pattern of "disinformation," after NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said the alliance could not confirm Israel’s assertion that the projectiles used were Iranian intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Baghaei wrote on X: "That even the NATO Secretary General (who is infamously pressing Alliance members to appease the U.S. and support their illegal war on Iran) declines to endorse Israel’s most recent disinformation, speaks volumes: the world has grown thoroughly exhausted with these tired and discredited 'false flag' storylines." He argued that these claims are designed to demonize Iran's missile capabilities.

Rutte, in an interview with CBS News on Sunday, backed U.S. President Donald Trump’s war on Iran, framing it as necessary and urging public support. However, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in an interview with NBC last month emphasized that Iran intentionally limits its missile range to below 2,000 km, stating, "We intentionally limited ourselves to below 2,000 km of range because we don’t want to be felt as a threat by anybody else in the world."

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper slammed "reckless Iranian threats" but added that London would not be drawn into a wider conflict in the Middle East. British Housing Secretary Steve Reed said on Sunday the UK had no indication that Iran intended to – or could, even if it wanted to – reach the country with its missiles. The UK-US military airbase on Diego Garcia is home to nearly 2,500 mostly American personnel and has supported U.S. military operations from Vietnam to Iraq, Afghanistan, and strikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

Israel’s military chief, Eyal Zamir, claimed that Iran used "a two-stage intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 4,000 km" to target the US-UK base. Israel, a close U.S. ally, has long alleged that Iran’s missile and nuclear programmes pose a threat and has for decades lobbied the U.S. to intervene militarily. But successive U.S. administrations had resisted pressure to launch military strikes on Iran, instead imposing wide-ranging sanctions on Tehran to deter it from developing nuclear weapons. As Washington and Tehran were engaged in talks, Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran about three weeks ago, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, despite Oman, the mediator of those talks, saying a deal had been "within reach."

Source: www.aljazeera.com