Italy protests Iranian drone attack on UK base in Cyprus, evacuates citizens from Gulf amid regional conflict.
ROME: Italy has summoned the Iranian ambassador to protest a drone attack on a British Royal Air Force base in Cyprus.
The Italian foreign ministry confirmed the diplomatic move on Tuesday following the incident early Monday.
A Cypriot government source said the Iranian-made drones were launched from nearby Lebanon, likely by the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
One of the drones struck the runway at the RAF base in Cyprus, which is a member of the European Union.
The attack occurs amid a wider regional conflict triggered by US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran last Saturday.
Those strikes killed the Islamic republic’s supreme leader and other senior officials.
Iran has retaliated with missile and drone attacks against countries in the region that host US bases.
Separately, Italy continued evacuating its citizens from Gulf nations on Tuesday.
The foreign ministry said around 300 people were flown back to Rome from Muscat in Oman.
A group of 200, mostly students, were also being flown from Abu Dhabi to Milan.
Others are being bussed out of the United Arab Emirates to Oman, and from Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar to Saudi Arabia.
