Iran fired a pair of missiles at the British-US Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean — more than 2,000 miles away — signaling Tehran has developed advanced capabilities to strike far beyond what was previously estimated.
The attack didn’t result in damage to the base, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported it. One missile failed and a US warship fired an interceptor at the second.
The joint military base is a key strategic asset, and was the subject of a tense diplomatic clash earlier this year.
The Natanz fuel enrichment complex in Iran on March 7, 2026. via REUTERSThe attack came the same day the UK gave the US permission to use the base to launch attacks on Iran.
“Nobody, and I mean nobody, even guessed” Iran had the capability to send missiles that far, William Alberque, a Europe-based senior fellow at the Pacific Forum, told the Financial Times.
“It means they probably used a modified missile — maybe a prototype,” he said.
The Friday strike caught the international community off guard, revealing Tehran had developed intermediate-range ballistic missiles beyond what it previously disclosed.
“Iran’s reckless attacks, lashing out across the region and holding hostage the Strait of Hormuz, are a threat to British interests and British allies,” the British Defense Ministry said.
Centrifuge machines line the halls at the Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility on April 11, 2021. APRoyal Air Force jets and other UK military assets “are continuing to defend our people and personnel in the region.”
The failed attack came after another period of dramatic developments in the US-Israel war with Iran:
Follow The Post’s coverage on the latest in the peace deal with Iran:
- Fed-up Trump threatens to ‘blow the s–t’ out of Iran — prompting Tehran to storm out of US peace talks
- Vance suggests US, Iran could ‘transform’ relationship but Tehran officials insist they’re not making friends: ‘Primary option is jihad’
- Trump vows to ‘hit Iran very hard again’ if Tehran doesn’t rein in Hezbollah
- Strait of Hormuz closing again, IRGC announces — as US Central Command says commercial traffic has ‘increased’
A satellite view of the Pickaxe Mountain tunnel complex in Natanz, Iran, on March 7, 2026. via REUTERS- Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility was hit in an airstrike on Saturday, the official Iranian news agency Mizan reported. There was no radiation leakage. Natanz, Iran’s main enrichment site, was hit in the first week of the war and several buildings appeared damaged, according to satellite images.
- Israeli military said early Saturday that it began a wave of strikes targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Smoke was seen rising, fires broke out and loud explosions were heard across parts of central Beirut.
- Israel said Iran continued to fire missiles at it early Saturday as the three-week war raged, while Saudi Arabia said it downed 20 drones in just a couple of hours in the country’s eastern region.
- President Trump said he was considering “winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East” in a Truth Social post Friday night. He said “we are getting very close to meeting our objectives” — which he listed as degrading Iran’s missile capability, destroying its defense industry, air force and navy, and never allowing it to “get even close” to nuclear capability.
- The US is dispatching three more amphibious assault ships and roughly 2,500 additional Marines to the region. This follows an order to send 2,500 Marines and 2,500 sailors to the region earlier this month.
There has been speculation the president could order US forces to take Iran’s Kharg Island, which processes 90% of Iran’s oil exports, after the US military pummeled its defenses last week.
That, in turn, could be a leverage point to force Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic.
The nuclear facility, located nearly 135 miles southeast of Tehran, had been targeted by Israeli airstrikes in the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June 2025, and by the United States. AP
Smoke ruses from Tehran, Iran after powerful explosions ripped through the city from airstrikes on March 21, 2026. Anadolu via Getty Images
People walk past a mural of Iran’s slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on March 21, 2026. AFP via Getty ImagesIranian military spokesman Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi issued a terror warning, claiming Friday that “parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations” worldwide won’t be safe.
The US has long worried Iran could try to deploy proxy forces or even “sleeper cells” to commit terror attacks across the globe — even while it is under siege.
Oil prices also climbed Friday while the stock market plunged, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the US was lifting sanctions on Iranian oil already loaded on ships, a move aimed at wrangling soaring fuel prices.
Dramatic video showed an Iranian missile fragment landing in Jerusalem’s Old City Friday night – just 400 yards from the Western Wall and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to Israeli media.
Israeli airstrikes rained down on Tehran as Iranians celebrated the Persian New Year, known as Nowruz.
Even as Trump is signaling the war could soon end, his administration is requesting $200 billion in supplemental funds from Congress to pay for it.
The 2,500 additional US Marines being deployed to the Middle East will join more than 50,000 US troops already in the region.
And questions continued over the health and location of Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. Iran on Friday released video footage of him teaching Islamic studies – but didn’t say when it was recorded. Khamenei issued a statement read on state television marking Nowruz, which praised Iran’s steadfastness in the face of war.
Khamenei has not been seen in public since he was elected the new supreme leader following Israeli strikes that reportedly left him wounded and killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the opening barrage of the war.
More than 1,300 people have been killed in Iran since then. In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missiles and four others have died in the occupied West Bank. At least 13 US military members have also been killed.
– With Post wires
