British defence minister says ‘few people will mourn’ Iran’s Khamenei

Mr John Healey also said that Britain played no part in the strikes on Iran. Read more at straitstimes.com.

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LONDON – Britain’s Defence Secretary John Healey said on March 1 that “few people will mourn” Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the British government’s first public response to the Iranian supreme leader’s death in US-Israeli strikes.

“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,” Mr Healey told Sky News.

He added that “the concern now, of course, is this regime is lashing out... in an increasingly indiscriminate and widespread way, and people will be really concerned that it’s not just military targets”.

Mr Healey, who also spoke to the BBC, repeated the UK government’s insistence that British forces were involved in purely “defensive” operations, with warplanes operating from Qatar and Britain’s airbase in Cyprus.

He declined to comment on reports that London had denied the United States access to British bases worldwide to conduct its attacks on Iran and would not be drawn on the legality of the US-Israeli strikes.