Iran attempted to strike Diego Garcia, the Indian Ocean island base critically enabling U.S. strikes, with a pair of ballistic missiles. Tehran launched what is believed to be an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) for the first time in an apparent bid to take out the runway at Diego Garcia. The joint British-American base in the Indian Ocean is a critical fulcrum for Western power projection in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region, supporting the largest and heaviest bomber missions as well as warships.
Broadcaster CNN claims to have been told by a U.S. defence source that the attempted attack took place on Friday, but that both missiles failed to find their targets and there was no damage or injuries. Britain’s Daily Telegraph states that one of the missiles spontaneously failed mid-flight, and the second was brought down by an interceptor missile fired by a warship. Unlike cruise missiles, which reach their targets by flying on a relatively flat trajectory through the atmosphere and often hugging the ground to confound anti-missile defences, ballistic missiles fly up into the outer atmosphere or near space before plunging back to Earth. This flight path makes them harder to intercept and, if destroyed while returning to earth, can still spread wreckage travelling at extremely high speed onto and around the intended target.
