Overview
- Yvette Cooper met Saudi energy and foreign ministers, addressed GCC foreign ministers on regional stability, and visited a British military base to thank air-defence troops.
- The UK condemned Iran’s strikes and highlighted defensive support, including an air-defence battery on high readiness, four additional RAF Typhoons, Wildcats and a Merlin helicopter, and destroyer HMS Dragon.
- Iran’s new supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei vowed to continue attacks and to keep pressuring the Strait of Hormuz, with oil prices hovering around $100 per barrel.
- The FCDO said more than 63,000 British nationals have returned from the region through charter and expanded commercial capacity, though some remain stranded with shortages reported.
- UK officials reported RAF defensive sorties over Jordan, Qatar and the UAE and an attack on British troops in Erbil, as Defence Secretary John Healey warned demining the strait would be difficult and Cooper linked Iranian tactics to Russia.