„We have taken the decision to accept this request to prevent Iran from firing missiles across the region, killing innocent civilians, putting British lives at risk and hitting countries that have not been involved.
„The basis of our decision is the collective self-defence of long-standing friends and allies, and protecting British lives.“
The UK reportedly shot down a missile heading towards a base housing its service personnel in Iraq on Saturday.
Healey noted that around 300 UK armed forces personnel were “within several hundred yards” of drones and missiles that Iran fired at a US military base in Bahrain, while two ballistic missiles were “fired in the direction of Cyprus” on Saturday.
“It demonstrates how our bases, our personnel, military and civilians at the moment are at risk with a regime that is increasingly indiscriminate, widespread and uncontrolled in the attacks it’s mounting,” he said.
Giving the first UK Government response to Mr Khamenei’s death, Healey told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “I think few people will mourn the Ayatollah’s death, not least the family and friends of those thousands of young protesters murdered on the streets of Iranian cities.
“Iran and the regime he’s led for so long, it’s a source of evil, murdering its own citizens and sponsoring and exporting terror, including to countries like Britain.”
(February 15, 2026)
Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, thanked African heads of state and government today via his Twitter account for the resolution condemning the US economic, commercial, and financial blockade against the island.
The Cuban foreign minister described the decision of the 39th African Union Summit, concluded in Addis Ababa, as a show of solidarity. For the seventeenth consecutive time, the summit rejected the economic, financial, and commercial policies imposed by Washington.
The resolution also demanded, for the third time, Cuba’s removal from the illegal list compiled by the U.S. State Department of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism.
(February 15, 2026)
The resolution reaffirms, once again, the deep historical, political, and solidarity ties that unite the peoples of Africa and Cuba, and constitutes a clear expression of African support for the elimination of this policy, which they consider unjust, illegal, and contrary to the principles of international law and the sovereignty of States.
(6.5.2002)
The United States has added Cuba, Libya and Syria to the nations it claims are deliberately seeking to obtain chemical or biological weapons.
(Jan. 29, 2002)
Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction.
Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September 11, but we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.
Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people‘s hope for freedom.
Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade.
This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens, leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.
States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria was a „historic day in the… Middle East“ and the fall of a „central link in Iran‘s axis of evil“.
Netanyahu said the events are „a direct result of the blows we have inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah, Assad‘s main supporters. It has triggered a chain reaction across the Middle East, empowering those seeking to break free from this oppressive regime.“
He spoke on a visit to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
(6.5.2002)
The United States has added Cuba, Libya and Syria to the nations it claims are deliberately seeking to obtain chemical or biological weapons.
(6.5.2002)
The United States has added Cuba, Libya and Syria to the nations it claims are deliberately seeking to obtain chemical or biological weapons.
(10.März 2002) WASHINGTON — The Bush administration, in a secret policy review completed early this year, has ordered the Pentagon to draft contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against at least seven countries, naming not only Russia and the „axis of evil“–Iraq, Iran, and North Korea–but also China, Libya and Syria.
In addition, the U.S. Defense Department has been told to prepare for the possibility that nuclear weapons may be required in some future Arab-Israeli crisis. And, it is to develop plans for using nuclear weapons to retaliate against chemical or biological attacks, as well as „surprising military developments“ of an unspecified nature.
(8.3.2018) In remarks reportedly made this week in a meeting with Egyptian newspaper editors, he pointed to a “triangle of evil” in the Middle East made up of Iran — Riyadh‘s perennial foe — Islamist extremist groups and Turkey. His rhetoric seemed to echo the notorious „axis of evil“ bluster of the George W. Bush administration.
The inclusion of Turkey raised eyebrows and sparked an angry backlash on Turkish social media.