Explosions have been heard over Doha in Qatar in the wake of a wave of Iranian strikes on US military bases in the Middle East.
Quickly after the missiles were fired, Iranian state TV announced operation “Annunciation of Victory”, seemingly its response to Trump’s devastating strikes launched on the country’s nuclear facilities just days ago.
It is believed the strikes were aimed at the al Udeid air base in Qatar.
According to the Qatari government, the attacks were thwarted by air defence systems.
A statement read: “The State of Qatar strongly condemns the attack that targeted Al-Udeid Air Base by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
“We consider this a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the State of Qatar, its airspace, international law, and the United Nations Charter.
“We affirm that Qatar reserves the right to respond directly in a manner equivalent with the nature and scale of this brazen aggression, in line with international law.
“We reassure that Qatar’s air defenses successfully thwarted the attack and intercepted the Iranian missiles.
“A detailed statement regarding the circumstances of the attack will be issued later by the Ministry of Defense.”
The White House has said it is monitoring reports of strikes in Qatar and Iraq, with Donald Trump currently in Washington’s Situation Room.
Air raid sirens have been heard in Bahrain and Kuwait following the strikes.
It comes after Qatar temporarily closed its airspace, which it said was out of “an abundance of caution,” and the UK and US warned their citizens in the country to take shelter.
The base is home to around 10,000 troops, and British soldiers are often deployed there on rotation.
Qatar has temporarily closed its airspace in response to the escalating conflict in the Middle East, grounding flights in and out of the Gulf state.
The move comes after US forces struck three nuclear sites in Iran, prompting Tehran to launch a barrage of retaliatory ballistic missiles against Israel.
Following Iran’s latest attack, former British foreign secretary Jack Straw told LBC: “The regime feels humiliated and they’re now just trying to strike out in any way they can. It’s not a rational response, but this regime has not been very rational for a number of years.
“At the head of the regime is Ayatollah Khamenei, who’s 86, he’s in poor health, he’s surrounded these days by acolytes who will be telling him things that he wants to hear. He’s deeply bitter. He hates Israel with a completely irrational hatred for reasons which few people even in Iran understand. And then you’ve got around him his Praetorian Guard, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, who are themselves will be pretty desperate because they know that if there is regime change, unless they’re part of it, which is possible in Iran, that the game will be up for them. So they are now striking out.
“We are likely to expect more of this as the Iranians try to show that they have the power which they said they had going back two to three years ago when they had this apparently impenetrable defensive strategy using proxies in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Israel, as well as the Houthis, who are still in business in the Red Sea”.
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