British troops helped defend a coalition air base in northern Iraq after a coordinated drone attack believed to have been launched by Iran or Iranian-backed forces struck Erbil and Baghdad overnight, leaving several American service members with minor injuries, UK defence officials said on Thursday.
British air-defence personnel at the base in Erbil shot down two incoming unmanned aerial vehicles on Wednesday night, but an unspecified number of other drones got through and hit the site, officials said. No British personnel were injured.
Brigadier Guy Foden, assistant chief of staff for operations at the Permanent Joint Headquarters, said the strikes appeared to show growing coordination.
“Erbil and Baghdad were both struck a number of times last night with increasing coordination,” he said. “We have personnel in Erbil who are currently helping with the defence of that base.
“Last night they shot down two UAVs coming at the camp. But a number of UAVs did impact on the camp.”
UK officials said the drones were “Iranian-linked” and believed to have been launched from Iran, but stopped short of publicly accusing the Iranian state of carrying out the attack directly. It remained unclear on Thursday whether the operation had been mounted by Iranian forces or by one of Tehran’s aligned militia groups operating in Iraq.
Lieutenant General Nick Perry, the Chief of Joint Operations, said there had been “no British casualties” and that the US had sustained “some” casualties overnight, which he described as “nothing too serious”. Officials said the injuries to American personnel were minor and that no deaths had been reported.
The attack targeted the Erbil air base, in the area of Erbil International Airport, where US and coalition military facilities are located and close to the US Consulate compound. Explosions were reported in the area on Wednesday night, with images from the scene showing fire and thick smoke rising near the airport district. It was not immediately clear whether all of those reports referred to the same strike.
Baghdad was also hit during the night, according to Brigadier Foden, though British officials did not immediately provide further details on the locations affected there or whether any casualties were reported in the capital.
The total number of drones launched in the attack has not been disclosed, and officials did not say how many UAVs struck the Erbil base. Nor did they identify the type of drone used. Defence sources said only that an unknown number of aircraft impacted the site after two had been intercepted by British personnel helping to protect the base.
The incident is one of the clearest recent confirmations that British forces in Iraq have directly engaged hostile drones while performing force-protection duties. UK troops are deployed in Iraq as part of the international coalition mission against Islamic State, known in Britain as Operation Shader, where their role includes training, support and assisting with the defence of coalition facilities.
Western military installations in Iraq have been targeted repeatedly in recent years by rocket and drone attacks blamed on Iranian-backed armed groups. Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, has been hit before, but officials suggested the pattern of Wednesday night’s strikes pointed to a more organised assault than isolated previous incidents.
Some British media reports cited former military figures as saying the operation reflected increasingly sophisticated drone swarm tactics, although UK defence chiefs did not publicly comment on that assessment on Thursday.
The attack is likely to sharpen scrutiny of the risks facing British personnel stationed in Iraq and the wider possibility of escalation between Iran-aligned groups and Western forces in the region. For now, officials have described the incident as serious but contained, with no British casualties and no indication of a broader evacuation or change to the UK deployment.
Further details, including the precise launch point of the drones, the extent of damage at Erbil and whether any retaliatory action will follow, were not immediately available.
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