Arabic version: إيران تنفي مزاعم الهجوم الصاروخي على قاعدة دييغو غارسيا

According to Al Jazeera,

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

The controversy arose after US media outlets reported that missiles were launched between Thursday night and Friday morning, but they failed to hit the Diego Garcia base. If Iran was confirmed to be behind the attacks, it would mean that it possesses 4,000km-plus (about 2,500-mile) range ballistic missiles able to reach as far as the UK capital, London. However, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had previously stated that the country intentionally limited its missile range to below 2,000km (1,242 miles) to avoid being perceived as a threat.

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 is home to nearly 2,500 mostly American personnel and has supported US 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 4,000km” to target the US-UK base. Israel, a close US ally, has long said Iran’s missile and nuclear programmes pose a threat and has for decades lobbied the US to intervene militarily. But successive US administrations had resisted the pressure to launch military strikes on Iran. Instead, Washington imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Tehran to deter it from developing nuclear weapons. As Washington and Tehran were engaged in talks, Israel and the US attacked Iran about three weeks ago, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The attack came despite Oman, the mediator of those talks, saying a deal had been “within reach.”